Electrocatalysis at Nanocarbons: Model Systems and Applications in Energy Conversion

It is clear that examples abound of outstanding performance of nanocarbons as precious metal‐free electrocatalysts in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), three key reactions for fuel cells and electrolyzers. Numerous nanostructures and synthetic methods have been reported for highly active carbon‐based electrocatalysts. However, a molecular level understanding of the role of chemical and structural elements on activity and stability of these nanomaterials continues to hamper further rationalization of the synthesis process. Performance of synthetic materials in the ORR, OER, and HER is consistently compared on the basis of onset potential. Significant advances in high‐performance carbon electrocatalysis in years have been enabled by fundamental structure‐activity characterizations on carbon model system. With particular reference to heteroatom‐doping studies, there are numerous works combining some surface chemical analysis with electrochemical performance studies to correlate the activity of materials in electrocatalysis to the presence of particular dopant sites.