Issue 14, 2015

A high-performance metal-free hydrogen-evolution reaction electrocatalyst from bacterium derived carbon

Abstract

We report a sustainable approach to obtain carbon materials with nitrogen and phosphorus dual functionalities from a common bacterium strain (S. aureus) as a highly efficient hydrogen-evolution reaction (HER) catalyst. With mesoporous structure introduced by ZnCl2 salt and cathodic activation, it demonstrates an onset overpotential as low as 76 mV, a Tafel slope of 58.4 mV dec−1 and a large normalized exchange current density of 1.72 × 10−2 mA cm−2, which are comparable to those of hitherto best metal-free and well-fabricated metallic HER catalysts.

Graphical abstract: A high-performance metal-free hydrogen-evolution reaction electrocatalyst from bacterium derived carbon

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
05 feb 2015
Accepted
04 mar 2015
First published
04 mar 2015

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2015,3, 7210-7214

Author version available

A high-performance metal-free hydrogen-evolution reaction electrocatalyst from bacterium derived carbon

L. Wei, H. E. Karahan, K. Goh, W. Jiang, D. Yu, Ö. Birer, R. Jiang and Y. Chen, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2015, 3, 7210 DOI: 10.1039/C5TA00966A

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