Ru nanoclusters immobilized in N‐doped porous carbon for efficient hydrazine‐assisted hydrogen production and Zn–hydrazine battery

Abstract Hydrazine‐assisted water electrolysis presents a promising and efficient hydrogen production technology. However, developing high‐performance hydrazine oxidation reaction (HzOR) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) bifunctional catalysts remains challenging. Here, we report a bifunctional electrocatalyst of Ru NCs@NPC, embedding the ultrafine Ru nanoclusters into N‐doped porous carbon via microwave reduction. Due to the ultrafine Ru nanoclusters and N doping, the composite exhibits exceptional activity for both HER and HzOR, requiring −55 and −67 mV to reach 10 mA·cm −2 in alkaline media. In the overall hydrazine splitting (OHzS) system, Ru NCs@NPC is used as both anode and cathode materials, achieving 10 mA·cm −2 only at 0.036 V. The zinc hydrazine (Zn–Hz) battery assembled with Ru NCs@NPC cathode and Zn foil anode can provide a stable voltage of 0.4 V and exhibit 98.5% energy efficiency. Therefore, integrating Zn–Hz battery with OHzS system enables self‐powered H 2 evolution. The density function theory calculations reveal that the Ru–N bond increases the metal–support interaction,