Heteroatom-Doped Nanoporous Carbon for Electrocatalysis

Abstract

The design of highly active and cost-effective electrocatalysts for replacing precious-metal catalysts is a key issue in the development of affordable renewable energy technologies in the future such as fuel cells, rechargeable batteries, and water-splitting devices. Among various candidates, porous carbon materials have long been considered as an excellent catalyst component because of their diverse structures, large surface area, low cost, and strong resistance to both acidic and basic solutions. Recent studies reveal that doping porous carbons with heteroatoms can modify their electronic structures, and consequently enhance their catalytic properties. In particular, the co-doping carbons with different heteroatoms would endow the synergistic effects for the electrocatalysis, which can generate comparable catalytic activities to precious-metal catalysts. This chapter reports the recent progress in designing and fabricating different kinds of heteroatom-doped porous carbons, including doped ordered mesoporous carbons and porous graphene. Furthermore, this chapter also summarizes the advances of doped porous carbons for electrocatalytic processes, such as oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Finally, we provide some perspectives as to the future directions of this intriguing research field.