Ethylene Glycol Electrochemical Reforming Using Ruthenium Nanoparticle-Decorated Nickel Phosphide Ultrathin Nanosheets

In this work, ruthenium nanoparticle-decorated ultrathin nickel phosphide nanosheets on nickel foam substrate (Ru/Ni2P/NF) nanocomposites are synthesized conveniently by a cyanogel-NaBH4 method and a subsequent phosphating process, which displays excellent electroactivity for both the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and ethylene glycol electro-oxidation reaction (EGEOR) in an alkaline solution. Concretely, at Ru/Ni2P/NF nanocomposites, only 1.37 and −0.13 V potentials are required to obtain a current density of 100 mA cm–2 for EGEOR and HER, respectively. Meanwhile, Ru/Ni2P/NF nanocomposites also exhibit pre-eminent electrocatalytic performance of the long-running process for both EGEOR and HER. Density functional theory calculations demonstrate that the introduction of Ru nanoparticles results in an optimization of the surface adsorption energy and construction of a synergistic catalysis interface, which improve the electrocatalytic performance of nickel phosphide nanosheets. Notably, a symmetric Ru/Ni2P/NF||Ru/Ni2P/NF ethylene glycol electrolyzer needs only 1.14 V electrolysis voltage to obtain 10 mA cm–2 for hydrogen production, which effectively eliminates the H2/O2 explosion risk and highlights an energy-saving mode for electrochemical hydrogen production.