The electrolysis of seawater to produce green hydrogen is considered a very effective method to generate clean energy to fulfill the world's needs for years to come. However, with 3.5 wt % salts in the seawater, including bacteria and microorganisms, lots of unwanted precipitates would occur on the active site of the electrodes, limiting the efficiency of the water electrolysis. In this regard, the use of electrocatalysts to support the reduction of activation energy barriers of hydrogen evolution rates and oxygen evolution rates and so enhance the production of hydrogen would be a very critical solution. Here we report the direct electrolysis of real seawater using a nonmagnetic cobalt/carbon-based electrocatalyst that is robust and highly active and generates a notable amount of hydrogen. The electrocatalyst was prepared from a biomass source with the addition of cobalt content at different concentrations and the process was carefully operated via a catalytic pyrolysis process. The as-prepared product was then decorated on the support nickel foam (NF) substrate to create CoO/C@NF self-supporting electrodes. The electrochemical performance of the electrocatalyst indicates excellent properties, achieving the industrial standard current density of 100 and 500 mA/cm 2 at low input voltages of 1.955 and 2.282 V at 30 °C, 1.863 and 2.156 at 50 °C, and 1.754 and 1.887 V at 70 °C, respectively. The best record of hydrogen production reached was 0.200 L, with a generation rate of 1.773 cm 3 /min, with the required voltage being almost constant at 100 mA/cm 2 , and increasing to 9.5% of its value at 500 mA/cm 2 after 100 h of operation. The findings of this work provide a competitive electrocatalyst derived from a biomass source via a simple creation process, which is highly active and very durable, and thus contributes greatly to the development of the seawater electrolysis industry.