Angelw: Institute of chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of physics and chemistry and Tsinghua University have made progress in the field of electrocatalytic decomposition of graphene for water and hydrogen evolution

Electrocatalytic decomposition of water for hydrogen production is an important way to reduce environmental pollution and realize renewable clean energy It is of great scientific value and practical significance to develop efficient and stable catalysts for hydrogen production Graphene materials are widely used in the study of hydrogen production from water by electrocatalytic decomposition because of their advantages of large specific surface area, good conductivity and high stability But up to now, graphene is only used as the support of catalyst, which can improve the hydrogen evolution ability by the way of catalyst loading or heteroatom doping There are few reports about the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution of graphene as a catalyst Three dimensional graphene network with high density boundary sites (source: angelw Chem Int ed.) Yu Gui, researcher, Key Laboratory of Institute of organic solids, Chinese Academy of Sciences The research group has been devoted to the research of CVD growth and etching graphene for a long time, and has prepared a variety of graphene materials with different layers, structures, dimensions and morphology, which effectively regulate the various properties of graphene Recently, the research group cooperated with Wu Lizhu, the Key Laboratory of the Institute of physical and chemical technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Ma Tianbao, the associate professor of the State Key Laboratory of tribology, Department of mechanical engineering, Tsinghua University, to directly prepare three-dimensional graphene materials without metal catalyst and template The morphology of graphene was further controlled Electrocatalytic decomposition of water for hydrogen evolution of three-dimensional graphene network materials (source: angelw Chem Int ed.) the three-dimensional graphene obtained in this study is composed of high-density vertical graphene coated silicon oxide nanowire network, in which the silicon oxide nanowire network is prepared in situ on the silicon substrate by chemical vapor deposition Unlike the inert two-dimensional planar graphene, the high-density boundary sites in the three-dimensional graphene material can be used as the active center to catalyze the proton adsorption and reduction to produce hydrogen It is the first time in the world that graphene materials can be used to decompose water for hydrogen evolution under the condition of undoped and unsupported cocatalyst Electrochemical tests show that the initial voltage of electrochemical hydrogen evolution is only ~ 18 MV, which is very close to the commercial Pt / C Theoretical studies have shown that the excellent hydrogen evolution is due to the abundant tip sites of 3D graphene materials, and these high-density border tip sites realize the transition from inert intrinsic graphene to high catalytic performance This study provides a theoretical and practical basis for the application of graphene materials in the field of hydrogen evolution from electrolytic water 17.html