Construction of Structural Defects to Enhance the Electrocatalytic Performance of Reduced Graphene Oxide (rGO)

Nowadays, using the cheapness catalysts to alternate the noble metal catalysts are becoming the more popular trend than ever before. Carbon materials as an industrial product are getting the more attention due to their excellent stability and conductivity. Thus, searching a method to give the carbon materials electrocatalytic performance is a hot research topic in the world. Our studies attempt to construct the defects on the carbon bones to give the carbon materials hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance. Concretely, the topological defects as active sites were successfully constructed on the bones of graphene, through the N-doping and N-removing on the carbon bones of graphene oxide (GO). The defects were verified by the XRD, XPS and TEM measurements. The fabricated APS/NG-1100 shows the obviously enhanced electrocatalytic performance, compared with the APS/GO-800 that is not conducted N-doping and N-removing processes. For instance, in the 1M KOH medium, the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) overpotential of APS/NG-1100 is 332 mV with a Tafel slope of 38 mV/dec. Meanwhile, it is observed that the HER overpotential of APS/NG-1100 is 337 mV with a Tafel slope of 98 mV/dec in the 0.5 M H2SO4 medium. These results indicate that the constructing the defects on the bones of carbon materials is an effective way to expand the applications of carbon materials as catalysts in the HER field.