LAUSR

The alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction, named HER, is of great significance for the large-scale green H2 production. Currently, pressing tasks in fabrication of cost-effective HER electrocatalysts are related to their sluggish water dissociation kinetics process. Herein, a facile strategy to accelerate the desorption of HER intermediates and water dissociation is proposed to prepare RuNi nanoalloy confined within N-doped carbon shells (Ru7Ni3@NC/C) with optimized Ru/Ni ratio and the dicyandiamide dosage, which displays an overpotential (η10) of 16 mV, Tafel slope of 29.9 mV dec-1, and long-term stability over 10,000 cycles. The decent HER performance on Ru7Ni3@NC/C stems from core-shell structure favoring the exposure of dispersed active sites, and the synergistic effect to promote water capture and dissociation. This work delivers insight into the relationship between the HER performance and the electrochemical behavior of the intermediate adsorbed state, and paves an avenue toward rational design efficient electrocatalysts for HER.