Journal
NANOSCALE
Volume 7, Issue 6, Pages 2306-2316Publisher
ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY
DOI: 10.1039/c4nr04924a
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Funding
- NSFC [21371070, 21401066]
- National Basic Research Program of China [2013CB632403]
- Jilin province science and technology development projects [20140101041JC, 20130204001GX]
- Graduate Innovation Fund of Jilin University [2014083]
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One of the main barriers blocking sustainable hydrogen production is the use of expensive platinum-based catalysts to produce hydrogen from water. Herein we report the cost-effective synthesis of catalytically active, nitrogen-doped, cobalt-encased carbon nanotubes using inexpensive starting materials- urea and cobalt chloride hexahydrate (CoCl2 center dot 6H(2)O). Moreover, we show that the as-obtained nanocarbon material exhibits a remarkable electrocatalytic activity toward the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER); and thus it can be deemed as a potential alternative to noble metal HER catalysts. In particular, the urea-derived carbon nanotubes synthesized at 900 degrees C (denoted as U-CNT-900) show a superior catalytic activity for HER with low overpotential and high current density in our study. Notably also, U-CNT-900 has the ability to operate stably at all pH values (pH 0-14), and even in buffered seawater (pH 7). The possible synergistic effects between carbon-coated cobalt nanoparticles and the nitrogen dopants can be proposed to account for the HER catalytic activity of U-CNT-900. Given the high natural abundance, ease of synthesis, and high catalytic activity and durability in seawater, this U-CNT-900 material is promising for hydrogen production from water in industrial applications.
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