Green synthesis of nitrogen and fluorine co-doped porous carbons from sustainable coconut shells as an advanced synergistic electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction

Abstract

Abstract Exploring a convenient and sustainable strategy to fabricate inexpensive and efficient electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is one of the main challenges to achieve the goal of large-scale commercial application of fuel cells. Herein, an environmental and convenient strategy is presented to ingeniously fabricate nitrogen and fluorine co-doped porous carbon (NF-PC) catalyst using coconut shells as a green carbon source. In particular, the integration of N and F atoms into the coconut shells-derived carbon framework plays a significant role in boosting the ORR catalytic performance, since the synergistic catalysis introduced by the co-doping of N and F. Benefiting from the favorable characteristics of microporous conductive carbon framework, moderate N and F co-doping, as well as synergistic effect between N and F dopants, the developed NF-PC catalyst possesses remarkable catalytic activity, methanol resistance and cycle stability, even surpassing than that of commercial Pt/C. In addition to providing a promising metal-free ORR catalysts, most importantly, the sustainable and convenient strategy explored in this research offers great potential for commercial applications in fuel cells and other clean energy technologies.