Coupling highly reactive RuP₂ with amorphous WP for boosting alkaline hydrogen evolution

Electrochemical water splitting stands out as an environmentally benign approach for generating green H₂ through the harnessing of intermittent energy derived from renewable sources. However, the slow water dissociation kinetics hinders the commercialization for water-alkali electrolyzer. In this study, we synthesize a novel porous nanocomposite (RuP₂/WP/PNC₃-A) combined with RuP₂ and amorphous WP by a facile and eco-friendly strategy. Detailed research results demonstrate that biomass-derived phytic acid not only promotes the formation of active metal phosphides, but also serves as a pore-forming agent to assist in the constructing a hierarchical porous structure, significantly enhancing the mass and electron transfer capability. Particularly noteworthy is that WP prevents the aggregation of RuP₂. During the post-treatment process more protected RuP₂ components are released and meanwhile leads to the conversion of WP from crystalline to amorphous. Benefitting from the applicable H adsorption ability of RuP₂ and the enhanced H₂O adsorption, dissociation capacity by amorphous WP, RuP₂/WP/PNC₃-A exhibits astonishing hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance, requiring an exceedingly low overpotential (only 24 mV) under 10 mA cm⁻², featuring small Tafel slope (64.6 mV dec⁻¹), and demonstrating excellent durability.