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 (similar to 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.