Nitrogen Doped Carbon as Efficient Catalyst toward Oxygen Reduction Reaction

A kind of nitrogen-doped carbon(NC) nanomaterials was prepared via calcining the nitrogen-rich organic molecular glycoluril under nitrogen atmosphere. Elemental analysis result indicates the N content of the obtained NC is 13.9 wt.%. Electrochemical measurement demonstrated that the obtained NC catalyst is an efficient ORR electrocatalyst in alkaline electrolyte. The process of ORR is dominated by a four-electron transfer pathway with the most efficient catalytic activity. In addition, the NC catalyst exhibits excellent stability and good resistance to methanol poisoning. After 10000 s of chronoamperometric durability test, the relative current of NC catalyst retained as high as 95%. This work provides a new strategy for the preparation of cost-effective ORR catalysts with high catalytic performance.