Catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) are crucial in fuel cells. Developing metal-free catalyst with high activity at low-cost and high-volume production remains a great challenge. Here, we report a novel type of nitrogen-doped nanoporous carbon nanosheets derived from a conveniently available and accessible plant, Typha orientalis. The nanosheets have high surface area (the highest surface area can be 898 m 2 g À1 ), abundant micropores and high content of nitrogen (highest content of 9.1 at.%). The typical product exhibits an unexpected, surprisingly high ORR activity. In alkaline media, it exhibits similar catalytic activity but superior tolerance to methanol as compared to commercial 20% Pt/C. In acidic media as well, it shows excellent catalytic ability, stability and tolerance to methanol. This low-cost, simple and readily scalable approach provides a straightforward route to synthesize excellent electrocatalysts directly from biomass, which may find broad applications in the fields of supercapacitors, sensors, and gas uptake.
Broader contextElectrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) are crucial in fuel cells and other electrochemical devices. It is highly challenging but extremely desirable to develop inexpensive metal-free catalysts, with high activity and with the capability of high-volume production of high yields for fuel cells. In this work, we have reported a novel type of nitrogen-doped nanoporous carbon nanosheets, which has been derived for the rst time from a conveniently available and accessible plant Typha orientalis. The materials have a high surface area, abundant micropores and a high content of nitrogen. A typical product exhibits an unexpected, surprisingly high ORR activity. In alkaline media, it exhibits similar catalytic activity but superior tolerance to methanol than commercial 20% Pt/C. The high activities can be ascribed to the large surface area with abundant micropores, the high content of pyridine and pyrrolic-like nitrogen atoms within the materials and the 3D interpenetrated network structure produced by numerous carbon nanosheets. The products were prepared using the plant Typha orientalis as carbon source and without using any organic solvent. The synthesis strategy is simple, low-cost, and can be easily scaled up for production.
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