Ni0.85Se Inducing Strong Metal-Support Interaction Promotes Alkaline Hydrogen Electrooxidation on Ru

Strong metal-support interaction (SMSI) is widely recognized as an effective strategy for designing high-performance electrocatalysts but suffers from a loss in the number of active sites during the high-temperature process. Herein, a Ru-catalyst supported on Ni0.85Se nanosheets has been fabricated through a facile microwave-assisted synthesis. Spectral characterizations and theoretical calculations confirm that the SMSI is formed under mild conditions at the metal-support interfaces, resulting in well-regulated electronic structures of the active Ru species and a downshifted d-band center. It significantly weakens the binding strength to the oxygenated species, which alleviates the competitive adsorption of H-ad and OHad on Ru surfaces and hence increases the tolerance to form the OHad-monolayer adsorbed (poisoned) Ru surfaces. As a result, the obtained catalyst exhibits a 7-fold enhanced mass activity compared to the conventional carbon black supported Ru as well as the enlarged effective potential window toward the alkaline hydrogen oxidation reaction. This work provides a facile strategy to construct SMSI under mild conditions for the design of high-performance electrocatalysts and can be expanded to other metal/metalloid compounds