Carbon‐Assisted Electrolytic Hydrogen Production: Investigation of the High‐Performance Fe‐N‐C Structured Biochar Catalyst

Hydrogen is a promising clean energy carrier amid growing energy demand and fossil fuel depletion. Conventional water electrolysis suffers from the sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER) at the anode. Carbon‐assisted water electrolysis (CAWE) offers a promising alternative by replacing the OER with the carbon oxidation reaction (COR), which significantly lowers the theoretical thermodynamic barrier and enables highly efficient hydrogen production. Nevertheless, carbon materials tend to degrade during oxidation, leading to reduced electrode stability and performance. In this study, Fe‐N‐C structured biochar catalysts are developed to regulate the electronic structure and physicochemical properties of the material, thereby enhancing its corrosion resistance and COR activity. The optimized catalyst exhibits excellent COR performance in 1 mol L −1 KOH solution, delivering a current density of 42.7 mA cm − 2 and an energy consumption of only 0.0079 Wh at a current density of 10 mA cm − 2 , ≈28% lower than that of conventional Pt‐based anodes. Further characterization through X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and density functional theory analyses reveals the synergistic effect of Fe‐N‐C sites, providing both theoretical and experimental insights into the design of high‐efficiency catalysts for electrolytic hydrogen production.