Coral-like-Structured Ni/C3N4 Composite Coating: An Active Electrocatalyst for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction in Alkaline Solution

Exploiting high-efficiency catalysts toward hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is a significant assignment nowadays. We find a quick and straightforward means to produce large-scale g-C3N4, which does not use template and easily obtains uniform nanostructures. And, we fabricate one-step preparation of a non-noble-metal catalyst, consisting of carbon material and transition metal only, by coupling graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) with Ni. The results show that Ni/C3N4 composite catalyst possesses coral-like structure and its unique morphology is in favor of electrochemical activity for HER Simultaneously, the Ni/C3N4 composite catalyst presented prominent activity on HER with a high exchange current density of 1.91 x 10(-4) A cm(-2), a low Tafel slope of 128 mV dec-i and small overpotentials of 356 and 222 mV to reach current densities of 100 and 10 mA cm(-2), which are superior to those of the state-of-the-art HER-active Ni-based compositions, as well as majority other metal-free catalysts, and even rivaled the electrocatalytic property of commercial Pt/C catalyst.