Thermal Puffing Promoting the Synthesis of N-Doped Hierarchical Porous Carbon-CoO x Composites for Alkaline Water Reduction

Zhongzhe Wei; Jing Wang; Junting Sun; Zhenhua Zhang; Bin Lu; Junjie Guo

doi:10.1021/acsomega.1c00184

Thermal Puffing Promoting the Synthesis of N-Doped Hierarchical Porous Carbon-CoO _x Composites for Alkaline Water Reduction

ACS Omega. 2021 Feb 24;6(9):6474-6481. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.1c00184. eCollection 2021 Mar 9.

Authors

Zhongzhe Wei¹, Jing Wang², Junting Sun², Zhenhua Zhang², Bin Lu², Junjie Guo²

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Industrial Catalysis, College of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310032, China.
² Institute of Advanced Magnetic Materials, College of Materials & Environmental Engineering, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, China.

Abstract

N-doped porous carbon-based catalysts hold great promise for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) due to their plentiful cavity construction, high specific surface area, and flexible metal assemblies. Nevertheless, the cumbersome synthetic process and the use of highly corrosive chemicals greatly increase the production costs and pollutions. Herein, we report a facile and eco-friendly thermal puffing strategy, which imitates the popcorn forming process, for the fabrication of N-doped hierarchical porous carbon-CoO _x catalysts. The results indicate that the well-developed porosity and high specific surface area (696 m² g^-1) of CoO _x -NC-1.0 are achieved during the thermal expansion. Impressively, the as-prepared CoO _x -NC-1.0 with ultralow Co loading (0.67 wt %) presents admirable HER performance to drive 10 mA cm^-2 at an overpotential of 189 mV in the alkaline electrolyte. Especially, the activity of CoO _x -NC-1.0 can be maintained for a continuous ∼70 h test. Such an excellent property of CoO _x -NC not only derives from the hierarchical porous structure but is also due to the higher ratio of graphitic-N and pyridinic-N, which promotes the better electrical conductivity and formation of more active Co⁰ for HER, respectively. Moreover, this strategy is applicable to the fabrication of other transition metal-based hierarchical porous composites, which opens new possibilities for exploring promising candidates to substituted commercial Pt/C.