Cobalt and cobalt oxide supported on nitrogen-doped porous carbon as electrode materials for hydrogen evolution reaction

A facile method is proposed to prepare cobalt supported on nitrogen-doped porous carbon material with high graphitization degree by using chitosan as carbon source, urea as soft template and poloxamer as dispersant. The prepared cobalt-carbon material ([email protected]) shows that uniformly distributed cobalt nanoparticles are encapsulated in nitrogen-doped porous carbon bundle with large specific surface area. When [email protected] is applied as electrode in hydrogen evolution reaction, it exhibits superior electrocatalytic performance with low overpotential (η10 = 259 mV), small Tafel slope (99 mV dec−1) and high stability with 83% of its original current density remained after 6 h electrochemical test in 1 M potassium hydroxide electrolyte.