Insight into the electrochemical activation of carbon-based cathodes for hydrogen evolution reaction

By Dong, Guofa; Fang, Ming; Wang, Hongtao; Yip, Senpo; Cheung, Ho-Yuen; Wang, Fengyun; Wong, Chun-Yuen; Chu, Sai Tak & Ho, Johnny C.
Published in J. Mater. Chem. A The Royal Society of Chemistry 2015

Abstract

Recently, carbon nanomaterials with outstanding electrocatalytic performance for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) after electrochemical activation have been reported; however, the exact activation mechanism is still under extensive debate. In this study, to better understand the activation, graphite rods and carbon nanohorns, two typical carbon materials in different scales, were electrochemically activated and their catalytic performances in HER were systematically studied, which showed that the HER performance was greatly affected by the counter electrode employed for the activation. An efficient activation was achieved when a platin

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