Optimized Adsorption of Had and OHad over Amorphous SrRuPtOxHy Nanobelts towards Efficient Alkaline Fuel Cell Catalysis

PtRu‐based catalysts toward hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) suffer from low efficiency, CO poisoning and over‐oxidation at high potentials. In this work, an amorphization strategy is adopted for preparation of amorphous SrRuPtOxHy nanobelts (a‐SrRuPtOxHy NBs). The a‐SrRuPtOxHy NBs have optimized adsorption of intermediates (H and OH), increased number of active sites, highly weakened CO poisoning and enhanced anti‐oxidation ability owing to the special amorphous structure. Consequently, a‐SrRuPtOxHy NBs displays superior HOR performance with a mass activity of 7.3 A/mgPt+Ru, 23 and 5 times of that of SrRuPt(OH)x NBs and commercial PtRu/C, respectively, and long‐lasting stability. Besides, a peak power density of 750 mW/cm2 and a specific power of 14.8 W/mgPt+Ru have been achieved for a‐SrRuPtOxHy NBs at a low loading of 0.05 mgPt+Ru/cm2, surpassing many reported HOR catalysts. Mechanism investigation indicates that Pt and Ru are present in oxide/hydroxide forms and H in a‐SrRuPtOxHy NBs participates in HOR. Ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations and density functional theory (DFT) calculations show that there are three catalytic mechanisms participating in a‐SrRuPtOxHy NBs, which all exhibit low catalytic barrier and highly improved HOR efficiency. This work provids a new strategy for designing high‐performance catalysts towards fuel cells.