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Biomass-based protic ionic liquid derived N, P, co-doped porous carbon-coated CoP nanocrystals for efficient hydrogen evolution reaction

  • Energy materials
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Abstract

Biomass-based protic ionic liquids (BILs), green solvents with inherent properties, have the potential as precursors of functionalized catalytic carbon materials. Simple one-step design and preparation of BILs-based porous carbon-based materials remains a challenge. Our demonstration here was to use BIL as an important precursor for synthesizing porous carbon-coated CoP nanocrystals by facile one-pot carbonization process. The as-prepared CoP@NPC-900 has a specific surface area of 979.67 m2 g−1 without activator and simultaneously exhibits excellent hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance with a low overpotential of 181 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and small Tafel slope of 59 mV dec−1 in acid solution. In addition, density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate lower adsorption free energy and rapid electron transfer between CoP nanocrystals and N, P co-doped porous carbon (NPC) are key factors of improving the HER performance. Our research opens up a new use of BILs, as well as provides a facile strategy to promote practical application of transition metal phosphides for HER.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (21736003, 31971614), National Program for Support of Top-notch Young Professionals, Science and Technology Basic Resources Investigation Program of China (2019FY100903), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2019PY13), State Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Engineering (2020ZR01), Guangdong Natural Science Funds for Distinguished Young Scholar (2016A030306027), Guangdong Natural Science Funds (2017A030313130), Guangzhou science and technology funds (201904010078), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Grant (2019T120725, 2019M652882).

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Author notes

  1. Jiaojiao Ma and Xiao Chi have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Jiaojiao Ma, Xiao Chi, Yiming Huang, Ren Zou, Di Li, Zengyong Li, Chuanfu Liu & Xinwen Peng

  2. Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 3, Bukit Timah, 117543, Singapore

    Xiao Chi

  3. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Xuehui Li

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  1. Jiaojiao Ma
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Correspondence to Chuanfu Liu or Xinwen Peng.

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Ma, J., Chi, X., Huang, Y. et al. Biomass-based protic ionic liquid derived N, P, co-doped porous carbon-coated CoP nanocrystals for efficient hydrogen evolution reaction. J Mater Sci 56, 18188–18199 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-021-06235-z

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