Article Title

Nitrogen-doped graphene microtubes with opened inner voids: Highly efficient metal-free electrocatalysts for alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction

Authors

Bing Zhang, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Hong-Hui Wang, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Hui Su, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Li-Bing Lv, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Tian-Jian Zhao, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Jie-Min Ge, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Xiao Wei, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Kai-Xue Wang, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Xin-Hao Li, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Jie-Sheng Chen, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China

Keywords

graphene, microtubes, green chemistry, hydrogen evolution reaction, water splitting

Abstract

A facile method was developed to fabricate nitrogen-doped graphene microtubes(N-GMT) with ultra-thin walls of 1–4 nm and large inner voids of 1–2 μm. Thesuccessful introduction of nitrogen dopants afforded N-GMT more active sites forsignificantly enhanced hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activity, achieving acurrent density of 10 mA·cm–2 at overpotentials of 0.464 and 0.426 V vs. RHE in0.1 and 6 M KOH solution, respectively. This HER performance surpassed thatof the best metal-free catalyst reported in basic solution, further illustrating thegreat potential of N-GMT as an efficient HER catalyst for real applications inwater splitting and chlor-alkali processes.

Graphical Abstract

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1147-1

Publisher

Tsinghua University Press

Recommended Citation

Bing Zhang,Hong-Hui Wang,Hui Su,Li-Bing Lv,Tian-Jian Zhao,Jie-Min Ge,Xiao Wei,Kai-Xue Wang,Xin-Hao Li,Jie-Sheng Chen, Nitrogen-doped graphene microtubes with opened inner voids: Highly efficient metal-free electrocatalysts for alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction. NanoRes.2016, 9(9): 2606–2615