Facile Fabrication of Bifunctional Hydrogen Catalytic Electrodes for Long-Life Nickel–Hydrogen Gas Batteries

The renaissance of long-lasting nickel–hydrogen gas (Ni–H2) battery by developing efficient, robust, and affordable hydrogen anode to replace Pt is particularly attractive for large-scale energy storage applications. Here, we demonstrate an extremely facile corrosion induced fabrication approach to achieve a self-supporting hydrogen evolution/oxidation reaction (HER/HOR) bifunctional nanosheet array electrode for Ni–H2 battery. The electrode is constituted by ultrafine Ru nanoparticles on Ni­(OH)2 nanosheets grown on nickel foam. Experimental and theoretical calculation results reveal that the electrode with optimized geometric and electronic structures ensures the efficient and robust catalytic hydrogen activities. The fabricated Ni–H2 battery using the Ru–Ni­(OH)2/NF anode with an industrial scale areal capacity of 16 mAh cm–2 demonstrates a high energy density, good rate capability and excellent durability without capacity decay over 1800 h. This study casts light on the development of low manufacturing cost and high performance bifunctional hydrogen catalytic electrodes for future hydrogen energy applications.