Sulfur-Modified Graphitic Carbon Nitride Nanostructures as an Efficient Electrocatalyst for Water Oxidation

• DOI: 10.1002/smll.201603893
• Publication Date: 2017-02-21T16:57:53Z
• Authors: Vinayak S. Kale; Uk Sim; Jiwoong Yang; Kyoungsuk Jin; Sue In Chae; Woo Je Chang; Arun Kumar Sinha; Heonjin Ha; Chan-Cuk Hwang; Junghyun An; Hyo-Ki Hong; Zonghoon Lee; Ki Tae Nam; Taeghwan Hyeon
• Keywords: Graphitic carbon nitride; Carbon fibers; Carbon nitride

There is an urgent need to develop metal-free, low cost, durable, and highly efficient catalysts for industrially important oxygen evolution reactions. Inspired by natural geodes, unique melamine nanogeodes are successfully synthesized using hydrothermal process. Sulfur-modified graphitic carbon nitride (S-modified g-CN x ) electrocatalysts obtained annealing these in situ with sulfur. The sulfur modification the structure leads excellent reaction activity lowering overpotential. Compared previously reported nonmetallic systems well-established metallic catalysts, S-modified nanostructures show superior performance, requiring a lower overpotential (290 mV) achieve current density of 10 mA cm−2 Tafel slope 120 mV dec−1 long-term durability 91.2% retention 18 h. These inexpensive, environmentally friendly, easy-to-synthesize extraordinary performance will have high impact field electrocatalysis.