Herein, we present the production of dualatom (B and N)-codoped carbon nano-onions (BN-CNOs) by a standard annealing method. The proposed codoping approach is efficient to introduce both heteroatoms in the graphitic skeleton, as revealed by several characterization techniques, and suitable for a low-cost mass production of Cbased catalysts. The activity of the CNO-based electrocatalysts toward oxygen reduction reaction has been investigated in alkaline media, showing comparable catalytic performance, higher long-term stability (retaining 98.7% of the initial current over 3 h of testing), and excellent immunity toward methanol crossover compared to the standard Pt/Cbased catalysts. Our findings confirm that B/N-codoped CNOs are promising candidates to efficiently catalyze the oxygen reduction in energy devices.

Fluorescent carbon nano-onions emitting in the far-red spectral window with enhanced solubility in biological media and bright photoluminescence are reported.

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