Co-N heteroatomic interface engineering in peanut Shell-Derived porous carbon for enhanced oxygen reduction reaction.

The development of high-efficiency and low-cost oxygen reduction electrocatalysts have become an urgent need to push fuel cells into practical application. Herein, an effective electrocatalyst Co/NC was successfully constructed, which was derived from abundant peanut shells, obtained by doping with cobalt ions and pyrolyzing in NH ₃ atmosphere. Due to the abundant Co-N active sites triggered by Co-N heteroatomic interface, the prepared electrocatalysts present excellent oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) performance with more positive half-wave potential (E _1/2  = 0.83 V), incremental limiting current density (J _L  = 5.45 mA cm ^-2 ), higher durability and stronger resistance to methanol, which is superior to that of Pt/C (E _1/2  = 0.81 V and J _L  = 5.19 mA cm ^-2 ). This work proposes a potential strategy to synthesize efficient ORR electrocatalysts to instead of Pt-based catalysts.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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