Sekar Sankar, Sadhasivam Sutha, Shanmugam Atsaya, Sekar Saravanan, Lee Youngmin, Lee Sejoon
Division of System Semiconductor, Dongguk University, Seoul 04620, Republic of Korea.
Quantum-Functional Semiconductor Research Center, Dongguk University, Seoul 04620, Republic of Korea.
Int J Mol Sci. 2025 Sep 1;26(17):8502. doi: 10.3390/ijms26178502.
Carbon-based metal-free catalysts, particularly those such as biomass-derived mesoporous activated carbon (AC) nanostructures, hold great promises for cost-effective and sustainable electrocatalysis for enhancing hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance in green energy technology. Neem and ginkgo leaves are rich in bioactive compounds and self-doping heteroatoms with naturally porous structures and act as a low-cost, sustainable biomass precursors for high-performance HER catalysts. In this study, mesoporous AC nanoflakes and nanosponges were synthesized using biomass precursors of neem and ginkgo leaves through a KOH activation process. Notably, AC nanosponges derived from ginkgo leaves exhibited outstanding physicochemical characteristics, including a sponge-like porous morphology with a large specific surface area of 1025 m/g. For electrochemical evaluation in 0.5 M HSO, the G-AC sample revealed superior electrocatalytic HER performance, with a remarkably low overpotential of 26 mV at -10 mA/cm, a small Tafel slope of 24 mV/dec, and long-term durability over 30 h. These results depict biomass-derived mesoporous AC nanosponges to hold substantial potential for highly efficient hydrogen production, contributing significantly to the advancement of eco-friendly energy solutions.
碳基金属-free催化剂，特别是那些如生物质衍生的介孔活性炭（AC）纳米结构，对于绿色能源技术中提高析氢反应（HER）性能的具有成本效益和可持续的电催化具有巨大潜力。印楝叶和银杏叶富含生物活性化合物和具有天然多孔结构的自掺杂杂原子，可作为高性能HER催化剂的低成本、可持续生物质前驱体。在本研究中，通过KOH活化工艺，使用印楝叶和银杏叶的生物质前驱体合成了介孔AC纳米片和纳米海绵。值得注意的是，源自银杏叶的AC纳米海绵表现出优异的物理化学特性，包括具有1025 m/g大比表面积的海绵状多孔形态。对于在0.5 M HSO中的电化学评估，G-AC样品显示出优异的电催化HER性能，在-10 mA/cm时过电位低至26 mV，塔菲尔斜率小至24 mV/dec，并且具有超过30小时的长期耐久性。这些结果表明，生物质衍生的介孔AC纳米海绵在高效制氢方面具有巨大潜力，为环保能源解决方案的发展做出了重大贡献。
