Fabrication of Ru/WO3-W2N/N-doped carbon sheets for hydrogen evolution reaction

Recent experimental analysis indicates WO3-based nanostructures exhibit poor hydrogen evolution reac-tivity, particularly in alkaline medium, arising from the low electron transfer rate. It is imperative to tune the composition and structure of WO3 to boost the cleavage of H-OH bond. Here, we construct Ru/WO3- W2N/N-doped carbon sheets (Ru/WO3-W2N/NC) using m-WO3 nanosheets as precursors with the aid of RuCl3, Tris (hydroxymethyl) aminomethane, and dopamine. Structural investigation reveals the forma-tion of N-doped carbon sheets, Ru nanoparticles, and WO3-W2N. As a result, hydrogen evolution reactiv-ity is greatly improved on Ru/WO3-W2N/N-doped carbon sheets with 64 mV at 10 mA/cm2 in 1 mol/L (M) KOH, outperforming most of WO3-based electrocatalysts in previous literatures. Meanwhile, it facilitates the generation of H2 in 0.5 M H2SO4 with the excellent activity of 110 mV at 10 mA/cm2. Our work pro-vides an efficient strategy to tailor the electronic structure of WO3 to catalyze acidic and alkaline hydro-gen evolution reaction.(c) 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.