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. 2022 Feb 3;12(3):531.
doi: 10.3390/nano12030531.

Excellent Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Reaction Performances of Partially Graphitized Activated-Carbon Nanobundles Derived from Biomass Human Hair Wastes

Sankar Sekar  1   2 , Dae Hyun Sim  1   2 , Sejoon Lee  1   2
Affiliations

Excellent Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Reaction Performances of Partially Graphitized Activated-Carbon Nanobundles Derived from Biomass Human Hair Wastes

Sankar Sekar et al. Nanomaterials (Basel). .

Abstract

Carbonaceous materials play a vital role as an appropriate catalyst for electrocatalytic hydrogen production. Aiming at realizing the highly efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), the partially graphitized activated-carbon nanobundles were synthesized as a high-performance HER electrocatalyst by using biomass human hair ashes through the high-temperature KOH activation at two different temperatures of 600 and 700 °C. Due to the partial graphitization, the 700 °C KOH-activated partially graphitized activated-carbon nanobundles exhibited higher electrical conductivity as well as higher textural porosity than those of the amorphous activated-carbon nanobundles that had been prepared by the KOH activation at 600 °C. As a consequence, the 700 °C-activated partially graphitized activated-carbon nanobundles showed the extraordinarily high HER activity with the very low overpotential (≈16 mV at 10 mA/cm2 in 0.5 M H2SO4) and the small Tafel slope (≈51 mV/dec). These results suggest that the human hair-derived partially graphitized activated-carbon nanobundles can be effectively utilized as a high-performance HER electrocatalyst in future hydrogen-energy technology.

Keywords: activated carbon; biomass; electrocatalysts; hydrogen evolution reaction; nanobundles.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic illustration of the synthesis process for the HH-AC-600 nanobundles and the HH-AC-700 layered nanobundles.
Figure 2
Figure 2
FE-SEM images of (a–c) HH-AC-600 and (d–f) HH-AC-700.
Figure 3
Figure 3
(a) Bright-field TEM image, (b,c) high-resolution TEM images, and (d) SAED pattern of HH-AC-600; (e) bright-field TEM image, (f,g) high-resolution TEM images, and (h) SAED patterns of HH-AC-700.
Figure 4
Figure 4
(a) XRD patterns, (b) Raman spectra, (c) N2 adsorption–desorption isotherm characteristics, and (d) pore size distribution characteristics of HH-AC-600 and HH-AC-700.
Figure 5
Figure 5
CV curves of the (a) HH-AC-600 and the (b) HH-AC-700 electrodes. CV curves at the Non-Faradaic region near 0.45 V for the (c) HH-AC-600 and the (d) HH-AC-700 electrodes. JCC as a function of the scan rate for the (e) HH-AC-600 and the (f) HH-AC-700 electrodes.
Figure 6
Figure 6
(a) LSV polarization curves, (b) Tafel curves, (c) multi-chronopotentiometric profiles at various current densities (from −10 to −100 mA/cm2), and (d) time-dependent HER durability for the HH-AC-600 and the HH-AC-700 electrodes.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Nyquist plots of the (a) HH-AC-600 and the (b) HH-AC-700 electrodes before and after the durability test.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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