Wood‐Derived Freestanding Carbon‐Based Electrode with Hierarchical Structure for Industrial‐Level Hydrogen Production

Abstract The sustainable and scalable fabrication of low‐cost, efficient, and durable electrocatalysts that operate well at industrial‐level current density is urgently needed for large‐scale implementation of the water splitting to produce hydrogen. In this work, an integrated carbon electrode is constructed by encapsulating Ni nanoparticles within N‐doped carbonized wood framework (Ni@NCW). Such integrated electrode with hierarchically porous structure facilitates mass transfer process for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Ni@NCW electrode can be employed directly as a robust electrocatalyst for HER, which affords the industrial‐level current density of 1000 mA cm⁻² at low overpotential of 401 mV. The freestanding binder‐free electrode exhibits extraordinary stability for 100 h. An anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE) electrolyzer assembled with such freestanding carbon electrode requires only a lower cell voltage of 2.43 V to achieve ampere‐level current of 4.0 A for hydrogen production without significant performance degradation. These advantages reveal the great potential of this strategy in designing cost‐effective freestanding electrode with monometallic, bimetallic, or trimetallic species based on abundant natural wood resources for water splitting.