Abstract
The metal-free carbonaceous catalysts are one of the promising candidates for efficient electrocatalytic hydrogen production. Aiming at demonstrating the high electrocatalytic activity of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), we synthesized the biomass rice husk-derived corrugated graphene (RH-CG) nanosheets via the KOH activation. The 700 °C-activated RH-CG nanosheets exhibited the large specific surface area as well as the high electrical conductivity. When using the RH-CG nanosheets as a HER electrocatalyst in 0.5 M H2SO4, the excellent HER activities with a small overpotential (9 mV at 10 mA/cm2) and a small Tafel slope (31 mV/dec) were achieved. The results provide a new strategy for materializing the superb biomass-derived electrocatalyst for highly efficient hydrogen production.
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•Corrugated graphene (CG) nanosheets were derived from biomass rice husks.•KOH activation at 700 °C led to the high degree of graphitization in biomass CG.•Biomass CG showed the mesoporous characteristics (total pore volume: 0.7566 cm3/g).•Biomass CG exhibited the extraordinarily high HER activities.•A small overpotential of 9 mV and a small Tafel slope of 31 mV/dec were recorded.