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FAQ: Carbon-Shelled Ruthenium Spheres for Hydrogen Production and Wastewater Purification
TL;DR
A new ruthenium-carbon catalyst from Gyeongsang National University enables hydrogen production at dramatically lower voltages, offering substantial energy cost savings for green energy systems.
The Ru@C-200 catalyst uses laser-engineered ruthenium nanospheres in carbon shells to achieve ultralow overpotentials for hydrogen evolution and hydrazine oxidation reactions simultaneously.
This technology combines clean hydrogen fuel generation with purification of toxic hydrazine pollutants, creating a dual solution for energy and environmental challenges.
Researchers created a catalyst that powers hydrogen production while cleaning wastewater, demonstrated in a self-powered zinc-hydrazine battery that runs for 600 cycles.
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The research presents a laser-engineered ruthenium-carbon core-shell catalyst that dramatically lowers the energy barrier for hydrogen production while simultaneously purifying contaminated hydrazine-containing streams.
It addresses two critical challenges: reducing the energy-intensive nature of conventional hydrogen production and converting hydrazine—an industrial pollutant—into harmless nitrogen, thereby combining green energy generation with waste treatment.
The catalyst accelerates both the hydrogen evolution reaction and the hydrazine oxidation reaction, enabling large hydrogen yields at exceptionally low voltages while degrading toxic hydrazine into nitrogen.
A research team from Gyeongsang National University conducted the research, which was published in eScience on September 2025 (DOI: 10.1016/j.esci.2025.100408).
The Ru@C-200 configuration exhibited the most favorable balance of conductivity, structural stability, and electronically coupled metal-carbon interfaces, achieving ultralow overpotentials for both reactions.
The catalyst achieved a low overpotential of 48 mV for hydrogen evolution and only 8 mV for hydrazine oxidation at 10 mA cm⁻², and required only 0.11 V to achieve 10 mA cm⁻² in a hydrazine-splitting electrolyzer while maintaining stability for over 100 hours.
The catalyst was synthesized using a pulsed-laser ablation-in-liquid strategy that produced uniform Ru nanospheres encapsulated within graphitic carbon shells, and was characterized using TEM, XRD, Raman, XPS, EXAFS, and XANES analyses.
The catalyst was integrated into a hydrazine-splitting electrolyzer and a rechargeable zinc-hydrazine battery, enabling continuous self-powered hydrogen generation while simultaneously degrading hydrazine.
Unlike conventional water electrolysis which is hindered by the slow and energy-intensive oxygen evolution reaction, this approach replaces that step with hydrazine oxidation, significantly reducing the voltage needed for hydrogen production.
Metallic Ru sites are responsible for hydrogen evolution, whereas surface-generated RuOOH species drive hydrazine oxidation, as revealed by in situ Raman and XANES analyses.
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