From waste plastics to layered porous nitrogen-doped carbon materials with excellent HER performance

Abstract

Herein, layered porous nitrogen-doped carbon sheets (LPNCS) prepared from waste plastics are employed as an electrocatalytic carrier for the HER under alkaline conditions. The N-doped coral-like nanostructure with abundant meso- and macropores would shorten the proton diffusion pathway, reduce the mass transfer resistance and promote Ru dispersion. The prepared Ru/LPNCS shows an excellent performance with an overpotential of 15 mV at 10 mA cm⁻², even lower than that of most reported Ru-based catalysts and the commercial Pt/C catalyst (17 mV), which provides a potential application for converting waste plastics into highly efficient HER catalysts.