The design of composites with controlled interfaces has proven to be an efficient approach to obtaining highly active electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction with improved stability. In this work, we report the preparation of Ni-based composites by co-depositing commercial CeO nanoparticles and Ru nanoparticles with N-doped carbon patches supported onto CeO (Ru@NC-CeO) using a facile electrodeposition method. The Ru@NC-CeO nanoparticles were obtained through the impregnation of CeO with Ru organometallic precursor and subsequent pyrolysis. A comprehensive chemical, structural and morphological characterization of the synthesized nanoparticles and co-deposit composites is presented. The cyclic voltammetry analysis showed that the composites exhibit a higher current density in comparison to the conventional nickel Watts catalyst; specifically a ∼ 48 % increase for the CeO-containing composite, and ∼ 105 % for the Ru@NC-CeO based composite. This study demonstrates that the small addition of Ru to the CeO nanoparticles on the nickel matrix can improve drastically the performance towards HER in alkaline media.

V.B.L acknowledges the Asociación Universitaria Iberoamericana de Postgrado (AUIP) for the postdoctoral fellowship with reference AUIP-21-C225-VBL. A.L thanks CONICET for her doctoral fellowship. V.B.L thanks CONICET for a postdoctoral fellowship. G.I.L. and E.A.F. are permanent research fellows of CONICET. This work was supported by projects from FONCyT PICT–2017-0250 and PICT 2019-0856 (Argentina), CONICET PUE2017 and PIP 179025, and SECyT–UNC. S.G.T and P.O.B thanks the project RTI2018-096399-A-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and Junta de Andalucía (P20 01027 and PYC 20 RE 060 UAL). The authors thank LAMARX, LANN-INFIQC laboratories for their assistance in XPS and SEM/EDX, Raman spectroscopy, and XRD measurements, respectively. G.I.L. thanks to the Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation for the equipment subsidy grant.

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