Laser Irradiation in Liquid-Generated PtNiRu@C Nanoparticles for Water Hydrolysis

In alkaline media, a crystalline platinum (Pt) electrocatalyst is essentially hindered by the sluggish water dissociation kinetics in the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), which originates from the almost full filling of the d orbitals. Herein, carbon nanotube-supported few carbon-layer-encapsulated ternary PtNiRu (PtNiRu@C/CNT) nanoparticles (NPs) were designed via convenient laser irradiation in liquids (LILs). The PtNiRu@C/CNT catalysts showed an ultralow overpotential of 7 mV at 10 mA cm –2 in alkaline media and more than 7 times higher mass activity of 1010 A g –1 at an overpotential of 50 mV (45 mV @ 10 mA cm –2 and a mass activity of 140 A/g for the Pt/C benchmark). In addition, the PtNiRu@C/CNT NPs still demonstrated good stability as well as decent activity after the durability test. Density function theory (DFT) calculations indicated that the introduction of oxophilic Ru accelerates the water dissociation, and the carbon layer confinement further facilitates the water dissociation as well as the subsequent *H adsorption, thus synergistically promoting the HER kinetics. As such, our work provides guidance and direction for the design of high-performance catalysts via a synergistic cascade strategy to enhance HER reaction kinetics.