Pt nanoparticles decorated high-defective graphene nanospheres as highly efficient catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract The electrocatalytic performance of the carbon supported catalysts can be effectively influenced by controlling the atomic structure of carbon materials. Herein, novel graphene nanospheres (GNs) composed of graphene nanoflakes are prepared through a modified arc-discharge method using toluene as carbon source. It is explored that these GNs possess high density of lattice disorder as well as the oxygen-containing functional groups. Attributing to the structural features, the Pt nanoparticles deposited on the prepared GNs exhibit a homogeneous dispersion without obvious aggregation. Such electrocatalyst with a Pt loading of 14.7  wt. % displays remarkable performance with low overpotentials of approximately −25 and −44 mV at the current density of −10 and −100 mA cm −2 as well as excellent cycling stability for the hydrogen evolution reaction. Thus, our result provides a suggestive way to improve the catalytic performance of the supported catalysts.