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Research Article

N, O-doped carbon foam as metal-free electrocatalyst for efficient hydrogen production from seawater

Qian Liu1, Shengjun Sun2, Longcheng Zhang2, Yongsong Luo2, Qin Yang2, Kai Dong2, Xiaodong Fang1, Dongdong Zheng2, Abdulmohsen Ali Alshehri3, Xuping Sun2,4 ()
Institute for Advanced Study, Chengdu University, Chengdu 610106, China
Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China
Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80203, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250014, China
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N, O-doped carbon foam derived from commercial melamine foam is a high-efficiency metal-free electrocatalyst for hydrogen production from acidic seawater, requiring small overpotential of 161 mV to drive 10 mA·cm−2 with a low Tafel slop of 97.5 mV·dec−1.

Abstract

Seawater electrolysis is the most promising technology for large scale hydrogen production due to the abundance and low cost of seawater in nature. However, compared with the traditional freshwater electrolysis, the issues of electrode poisoning and corrosion will occur during the seawater electrolysis process, and active and stable electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) are thus highly desired. In this work, N, O-doped carbon foam in-situ derived from commercial melamine foam is proposed as a high-active metal-free HER electrocatalyst for seawater splitting. In acidic seawater, our catalyst shows high hydrogen generation performance with small overpotential of 161 mV at 10 mA·cm−2, a low Tafel slop of 97.5 mV·dec−1, and outstanding stability.

Keywords

carbon foamhydrogen evolution reactionseawater electrolysiselectrocatalyst

Electronic Supplementary Material

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12274_2022_4869_MOESM1_ESM.pdf (3.4 MB)

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Nano Research
Volume 15 Issue 10,
October 2022
Pages 8922-8927
DOI: 10.1007/s12274-022-4869-2
Cite this article:
Liu Q, Sun S, Zhang L, et al. N, O-doped carbon foam as metal-free electrocatalyst for efficient hydrogen production from seawater. Nano Research, 2022, 15(10): 8922-8927. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4869-2
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