A high-performance metal-free hydrogen-evolution reaction electrocatalyst from bacterium derived carbon

Abstract

We report a sustainable approach to obtain carbon materials with nitrogen and phosphorus dual functionalities from a common bacterium strain (S. aureus) as a highly efficient hydrogen-evolution reaction (HER) catalyst. With mesoporous structure introduced by ZnCl₂ salt and cathodic activation, it demonstrates an onset overpotential as low as 76 mV, a Tafel slope of 58.4 mV dec⁻¹ and a large normalized exchange current density of 1.72 × 10⁻² mA cm⁻², which are comparable to those of hitherto best metal-free and well-fabricated metallic HER catalysts.