Biomass waste-derived nitrogen and iron co-doped nanoporous carbons as electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction

• Biomass-derived carbons are appropriate precursors for fuel cell electrocatalysts. Microporosity and graphitic domains play a determining role in electroactivity. Catalysts become active upon two thermal treatments one acid etching. Fe-N 4 -C nitrogen functionalities created on activated carbon matrix. Biomass from agricultural by-products is gaining increasing interest as cheap abundant precursor the development of materials efficient environmentally friendly devices like cells. Herein, we investigated iron co-doped nanoporous derived aronia, peach stones coal tar pitch/furfural electrocatalysts electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) alkaline media. Urea was used annealing steps with intermediate leaching served to activate catalysts. Within series, stone-derived catalyst exhibited catalytic activity ORR close benchmark Pt/C, 60 mV dec ?1 Tafel slope incorporation 0.57 wt% Fe proper combination N-Fe species (20%) pyridinic/pyridonic moieties (49%). We concluded that microporosity certain content meso/macro-pores carbon, together creation result high relative amount functionalities, which determine electrocatalytic performance.