Issue 44, 2018

Multiple heteroatom-doped few-layer carbons for the electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction

Abstract

Heteroatom-doped two-dimensional (2D) carbon materials have been recognized as promising metal-free catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) due to their impressive surface activity. Such materials are often achieved by conventional chemical vapour deposition (CVD) growth followed by post-treatment of heteroatom-doping or obtained by template-guided polymerization and carbonization of organic substances. In this contribution, we report a new strategy that allows a direct conversion of three-dimensional (3D) aggregates of guanine into naturally N/O-doped ultrathin few-layer carbon nanosheets without the use of any template or guiding agent. Moreover, by pre-ionizing guanine with H2SO4/H3PO4, a group of multiple heteroatom-doped (N/O/S, N/O/P, and N/O/S/P) 2D carbons can also be readily realized. Considering the low cost of precursors and the simplicity of the synthetic procedure, large-scale production of such heteroatom-doped 2D carbons is potentially available. The best catalytic performance is obtained from the N/O/S/P-doped carbons which show a half-wave potential (E1/2) of 0.84 V vs. RHE and a diffusion-limited current density (jL) of 5.40 mA cm−2 in 0.1 M KOH, better than those of most graphene-based catalysts and even the commercial Pt/C catalyst. Systematic studies indicate that the observed superior ORR performance arises from a combined effect of the multiple heteroatom-doping, high surface area and abundant structural defects of the electrocatalyst.

Graphical abstract: Multiple heteroatom-doped few-layer carbons for the electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
12 Jul 2018
Accepted
04 Okt 2018
First published
04 Okt 2018
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2018,6, 22277-22286

Multiple heteroatom-doped few-layer carbons for the electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction

B. Huang, Y. Liu, X. Huang and Z. Xie, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2018, 6, 22277 DOI: 10.1039/C8TA06743K

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