Strong metal-support interaction of Ru-NPs/WCx boosts alkaline hydrogen evolution and oxidation for alkaline fuel cells and electrolyzers

Developing Pt-free catalysts for alkaline hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) for anion-exchange membrane fuel cells (AEMFCs) is still a big problem. Herein, we report a WCx supported Ru nanoparticles (Ru-NPs/WCx) electrocatalyst. The Ru-NPs/WCx-based H2-air AEMFC not only delivers in the mass activity (MA) (3.13 mgPGM-1@0.65 V) and specific peak power density (2.55 W mgPGM-1) at low total metal loadings, but also exhibits more than 210 h durability. Besides, the Ru-NPs/WCx-based AEMWE only needs 1.73 V to reach an industrial current density of 1 A cm-2. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations uncover that the strong interaction of Ru-NPs and WCx support results in the electron-deficient state of Ru-NPs, which simultaneously optimizes the adsorption of intermediates, thus enhancing both HOR and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performances. In short, designing the support with strong interaction with metal can contribute to the development of durable alkaline HOR electrocatalysts. High-performance anion exchange membrane fuel cells and electrolyzers relay on Pt based catalysts. Here, the authors design WCx supported Ru nanoparticles as electrocatalyst with strong metal-support interaction for efficient alkaline hydrogen oxidation and evolution.