Nitrogen-doped porous carbon derived from biomass used as trifunctional electrocatalyst toward oxygen reduction, oxygen evolution and hydrogen evolution reactions

Tremendous developments in energy storage and conversion technologies urges researchers to develop inexpensive, greatly efficient, durable and metal-free electrocatalysts for trifunctional electrochemical reactions, namely oxygen reduction reactions (ORRs), oxygen evolution reactions (OERs) and hydrogen evolution reactions (HERs). In these regards, this present study focuses upon the synthesis of porous carbon (PC) or N-doped porous carbon (N-PC) acquired from golden shower pods biomass (GSB) via solvent-free synthesis. Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) studies confirmed the doping of nitrogen in N-PC. In addition, morphological analysis via field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) provide evidence of the sheet-like porous structure of N-PC. ORR results from N-PC show the four-electron pathway (average n = 3.6) for ORRs with a Tafel slope of 86 mV dec⁻¹ and a half-wave potential of 0.76 V. For OERs and HERs, N-PC@Ni shows better overpotential values of 314 and 179 mV at 10 mA cm⁻², and its corresponding Tafel slopes are 132 and 98 mV dec⁻¹, respectively. The chronopotentiometry curve of N-PC@Ni reveals better stability toward OER and HER at 50 mA cm⁻² for 8 h. These consequences provide new pathways to fabricate efficient electrocatalysts of metal-free heteroatom-doped porous carbon from bio-waste/biomass for energy application in water splitting and metal air batteries.