Development of starch-based amorphous CoOx self-supporting carbon aerogel electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution

Hydrogen energy is turning into a major research topic in this complex and changing world. In recent years, more and more research has been done on transition metal oxides and biomass composites. In this study, potato starch and amorphous cobalt oxide were assembled into carbon aerogel by sol-gel method and high-temperature annealing (CoOx/PSCA). The connected porous structure of the carbon aerogel is conducive to HER mass transfer, and its structure can avoid the agglomeration of transition metals. It also has great mechanical properties and can be directly used as a self-supporting catalyst for electrolysis with 1 M KOH for hydrogen evolution, which showed excellent HER activity and yielded the effective current density of 10 mA cm-2 at 100 mV overpotential. Electrocatalytic experiments further showed that the better performance of CoOx/PSCA for HER can be attributed to the high electrical conductivity of carbon and the synergistic effect of unsaturated catalytic sites on the amorphous CoOx cluster. The catalyst comes from a wide range of sources, is easy to produce, and has good long-term stability, so it can be used in large-scale production. This paper provides a simple and easy method to make biomass-based transition metal oxide composites for electrolyzing water to produce hydrogen.