Constructed Ru@Cr3N0.4C1.6 heterostructure on carbon nanofibers for efficient hydrogen evolution reaction in alkaline media

The development of an efficient and low-cost electrocatalyst is critical to the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, we reported a Ru@Cr3N0.4C1.6 nanoparticles grown on carbon nanofibers, which was prepared by electrospinning and high temperature carbonization strategies. The introduction of Ru metal helps Cr3N0.4C1.6 nanoparticles expose active sites on the surface of CNF to improve the catalytic performance, while the introduction of Cr optimizes the binding energy of Ru-H to achieves higher catalytic activity. Moreover, the heterogeneous structure formed by Ru metal and Cr3N0.4C1.6 nanoparticles also contributed to the catalytic performance. Therefore, the Ru@Cr3N0.4C1.6/CNF exhibited excellent catalytic activity with a low overpotential of 35 mV to obtain current density of 10 mA cm−2 in 1 M KOH. And it also showed outstanding long-term stability after continuously working for 200 h. This work provides a new method to prepare catalysts efficiently and cheaply.