Enhanced supercapacitive and hydrogen evolution reaction performance using hierarchically porous carbon derived from Viburnum Sargenti fruits

Abstract

The advanced carbon materials draw intensive attention as model candidates for supercapacitors (SCs) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, for the first time, the hierarchical porous carbon (HPC) derived from natural resource is prepared and verified in both SCs and HER via a facile method using the disposable Viburnum sargenti fruits as precursor and KOH as both activating agent and sacrificial precursor. As a result, the optimized HPC-5-600 possesses superior electrochemical behavior (471 F/g) in terms of micro/mesoporous/macroporous structure that provides a large specific surface area and rich active sites. Specifically, the HPC-5-600-based symmetric device delivers favorable energy density of 25.2 Wh/kg. Moreover, the HPC-5-600 can efficiently catalyze the HER in an alkaline electrolyte with a small overpotential of 33 mV at 10 mA/cm2 and exhibit a beneficial kinetics. This work provides a facile strategy to explore low cost and highly difunctional materials for energy storage and catalysis applications.