Boron/Nitrogen-Codoped Carbon Nano-Onion Electrocatalysts for the Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Abstract

Herein, we present the production of dual-atom (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 C-based 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/C-based catalysts. Our findings confirm that B/N-codoped CNOs are promising candidates to efficiently catalyze the oxygen reduction in energy devices.