Tailoring multifunctional iron-ruthenium interfaces to minimize competitive adsorption of hydrogen and hydroxyl species for enhanced alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction

Xiang Tian; Yan Zhan; Xian Zhang; Wei Lian; Jie Wu; Feng Gu; Huanyu Zhu; Zhiguang Guo; Jianbo Li; Mildred Quintana

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2025.138399

Tailoring multifunctional iron-ruthenium interfaces to minimize competitive adsorption of hydrogen and hydroxyl species for enhanced alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2025 Jul 10;700(Pt 1):138399. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2025.138399. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Xiang Tian¹, Yan Zhan¹, Xian Zhang², Wei Lian³, Jie Wu⁴, Feng Gu⁵, Huanyu Zhu³, Zhiguang Guo⁵, Jianbo Li⁶, Mildred Quintana⁷

Affiliations

¹ School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha 410114, China.
² Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for the Green Preparation and Application of Functional Materials, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China. Electronic address: xianzhang@hubu.edu.cn.
³ School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wenzhi Street 34, Wuhan 430070, China.
⁴ Doctorado Institucional de Ingeniería y Ciencia de Materiales, Universidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosi, Av. Sierra Leona 530, San Luis Potosi 78210, Mexico.
⁵ Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for the Green Preparation and Application of Functional Materials, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China.
⁶ School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wenzhi Street 34, Wuhan 430070, China. Electronic address: lijianbo3051@163.com.
⁷ Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosi, Av. Parque Chapultepec 1570, San Luis Potosi 78210, Mexico.

PMID: 40652827
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2025.138399

Abstract

Alleviating the competition adsorption between H* and OH* adsorption on catalysts represents a fundamental challenge for optimizing the catalytic efficiency of alkaline hydrogen evolution reactions (HER). Herein, a multiphase heterojunction of Ru nanoparticles modified FeOOH/FeS (Ru-FeOOH/FeS) was designed to minimize OH*-induced site blocking and free Ru active sites for efficient HER. Typically, the optimized Ru-FeOOH/FeS demonstrated superior performance, requiring only 22.26 and 259.74 mV of overpotentials to reach current densities of 10 and 500 mA cm^-2, respectively, and maintaining stable operation over 70 h. Additionally, the mass activity at an overpotential of 200 mV was increased 3.5-fold over commercial Pt/C (5.44 A·mg_Ru^-1 vs 1.57 A·mg_pt^-1, Pt/C). Density functional theory calculations confirmed that the disparity in OH* adsorption energy was established at the Ru-FeOOH interface, where FeOOH with a strong affinity for OH* effectively promoted the regeneration of Ru active sites. Meanwhile, the synergistic effect of Ru sites and the support of FeS optimized the RuH binding strength, which facilitated the transform of H* to hydrogen. This work provides a strategy to precisely control the interaction between electrocatalysts and reaction intermediates for achieving efficient hydrogen production.

Keywords: Alkaline HER; Competitive adsorption; Multiphase heterojunction; Ru-based catalyst.