Activity Origins in Nanocarbons for the Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

Sustainable hydrogen production is an essential prerequisite for realizing the future hydrogen economy. The electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), as the cornerstone of exploring the mechanism of water electrolysis, has attracted extensive interest in the past decades. Carbon‐based materials with significant merits such as abundance, low cost, high conductivity, and tunable molecular structures, are considered as promising candidates for replacing the commercial noble metal electrocatalysts. To date, activity origins of these carbon‐based electrocatalysts are mainly attributed to the dopants (e.g., N, B, P or S), whereas the contribution of intrinsic/induced carbon defects has recently been a hot research topic. In this Review, besides the development of heteroatoms doping strategies, the latest studies on defective carbon‐based materials for HER electrocatalysis are summarized, especially for various approaches to prepare defective carbons and the detailed introduction regarding the defect catalysis mechanism. Finally, an outlook into the development of future defective carbon‐based HER electrocatalysts is presented. Nanocarbons as sustainable and environmentally friendly materials are employed in the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction. This Review summarizes the recent advances of heteroatoms doped nanocarbons and defective nanocarbons for the hydrogen evolution reaction. Furthermore, this Review also presents an in‐depth discussion of the catalytic mechanism, current issues, and the outlooks in the future development of nanocarbon catalysts.