Enhancing Hydrogen Peroxide Production through Modulating the Morphology of N-doped Mesoporous Carbon Electrocatalysts

The ever-growing demand for hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) makes large-scale production via environmentally-friendly strategies necessary. The electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction stands out as an efficient and green approach for H₂O₂ production. Here, nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon materials (NMCM) with a hollow semispherical morphology are synthesized for H₂O₂ generation, which exhibit remarkable electrocatalytic stability, selectivity (94.5%), and onset potential (~ 0.6 V) toward the H₂O₂ formation in neutral environment. The distinct H₂O₂ production performance of NMCM can be attributed to synergistic effect of two factors, that is, the pyrrolic N to optimize the work function and the hollow semispherical morphology to facilitate mass transfer and expose abundant electrocatalytic active sites. This work offers a facile way to prepare metal-free electrocatalysts for realizing high-performance H₂O₂ production in neutral solutions.

Nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon materials with a hollow semispherical morphology and high pyrrolic N contents are synthesized for efficient H₂O₂ production.