Increasing energy demands have motivated scientists to work out affordable, clean, and renewable energy technologies to replace conventional fossil fuels. Among different energy resources, hydrogen energy produced by electrochemical water splitting is gaining more attention [1]. Hydrogen is considered an alternative fuel to replace conventional fossil fuels because of its high energy density and zero carbon emissions [2,3]. For rice husk (RH) valorization, there have been recorded various options such as fuel production, heat/electricity production, agricultural, industrial uses, constructing materials, chemicals, and adsorbents like biochars [4]. Herein, we report a carbon-based composite (denoted as RHB) derived from rice husk on nickel foam as an electrocatalyst for water splitting.The prepared RHB/NF electrocatalyst requires an overpotential of only 132 mV and 589 mV to achieve the current density of 10 mA.cm⁻² and 100 mA.cm⁻² in case of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), respectively.While in the case of OER, RHB/Nf shows an overpotential of 180 mV and 561 mV to deliver a current density of 10 mA.cm⁻² and 100 mA.cm⁻², respectively. The Tafel slope of RHB/NF obtained 78.1 mV.dec⁻¹ and 73.5 mV.dec⁻¹ for hydrogen evolution reaction(HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) , respectively. The HER and OER performances of the as-obtained electrocatalysts were measured by electrochemical techniques in 1.0 M KOH. Also, the prepared composite was well characterized by various techniques such as FTIR, XRD, EDS, FE-SEM, and XPS and evaluated for electrochemical water splitting.
