Carbon and graphene hybrid aerogels on electrocatalysts for sustainable energy applications: Recent developments and progress

In recent decades, the evolution of porous materials such as aerogels has extensively influenced the electrocatalysts for sustainable energy applications in the field of electrochemical double-layer capacitors, fuel cells, cryogenic energy storage devices, dye synthesized cells, and Li-ion batteries. Carbon and graphene oxide aerogels nanoporous structured materials have multiple advantages of higher specific surface area, hierarchical mesoporous structure, tunable molecular structures, and environmental compatibility, which have increased interest to focus on electrocatalysts for sustainable energy applications to provide higher oxygen reduction rate (ORR), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), and CO2 reduction reaction (COR). A systematic review covering the most recent progress on the preparation of carbon and graphene oxide aerogels as electrocatalysts with brief insights into individual OER, ORR, HRR, and COR is comprehensively summarized for further development in chemisorption. Further, the emerging prospects of synthesis of these hybrid aerogels are pointed out with a bold vision on forthcoming advances of these materials in functionalization with industrial scale.