In situ construction of 3-dimensional hierarchical carbon nanostructure; investigation of the synthesis parameters and hydrogen evolution reaction performance

Hierarchical 3-dimensional (3D) carbon nanostructures have potential applicability in several electrochemical energy applications own to their sizeable effective surface, specific energy density , cycling stability and flexibility. Herein, combining electrospinning with in situ chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technologies as an efficient and secure procedure is applied for constructing 3D carbon nanostructure-based on carbon fibers (CFs) and electrospun carbon nanofibers (ECNFs). Affect the catalysis type, immersion solution, carbon sources and treat temperature are experimentally demonstrated. Cactus-like 3D carbon nanomaterials are constructed via growth forest-like carbon nanofibers (CNFs) directly on both CNFs and CFs at 900 °C using Ni as a catalyst, cellulose acetate (CA) as carbon source and ethanol-urea as an immersions solution. The Ni/CNFs/ECNFs mat exhibits a large surface area of 342.3 m 2  g −1 , while just 19.3 m 2  g −1 is recorded to Ni/CNFs/CFs. Based on the nano-nonwoven structure and forest-like grown CNFs nanostructure, Ni/CNFs/ECNFs exhibit a favorable hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance in an alkaline medium with a low overpotential of 88 mV to deliver 10 mV cm −2 current density and Tafel slope of 170 mV dec −1 . This work proves the synthesis parameters of 3D hierarchical carbon nanostructures and their enticing to apply as an advanced substrate for electrochemical applications.