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Research Article

Fullerene-derived boron-doped defective nanocarbon for highly selective H2O2 electrosynthesis

Wangqiang Shen1,§, Chang Zhang3,§, Muneerah Alomar4, Zhiling Du2( ), Zepeng Yang1, Junjie Wang1, Guangqing Xu1, Jian Zhang3( ), Jun Lv1( ), Xing Lu3( )
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230009, China
School of Energy and Environmental, Hebei University of Engineering, Handan 056038, China
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
Department of Physics, College of Sciences, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, P. O. Box 84428, Riyadh 11671, Saudi Arabia

§ Wangqiang Shen and Chang Zhang contributed equally to this work.

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Graphical Abstract

By using fullerene (C60) and boric oxide as the precursors, a boron-doped defective nanocarbon electrocatalyst was constructed. It takes advantages of target topological pentagon defects and boron dopants to alter the charge distribution of the carbon matrix for improving the two-electron oxygen reduction reaction (2e– ORR) performance that surprisingly achieves a high H2O2 production rate (247 mg·L–1·h–1) with quantitative Faraday efficiency.

Abstract

Electrochemical production of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) via the two-electron (2e−) pathway of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) supplies an auspicious alternative to the current industrial anthraquinone process. Nonetheless, it still lacks efficient electrocatalysts to achieve high ORR activity together with 2e− selectivity simultaneously. Herein, a boron-doped defective nanocarbon (B-DC) electrocatalyst is synthesized by using fullerene frameworks as the precursor and boric oxide as the boron source. The obtained B-DC materials have a hierarchical porous structure, befitting boron dopants, and abundant topological pentagon defects, exhibiting a high ORR onset potential of 0.78 V and a dominated 2e− selectivity (over 95%). Remarkably, when B-DC electrocatalyst is employed in a real device, it achieves a high H2O2 yield rate (247 mg·L−1·h−1), quantitative Faraday efficiency (~ 100%), and ultrafast organic pollutant degradation rate. The theoretical calculation reveals that the synergistic effect of topological pentagon defects and the incorporation of boron dopants promote the activation of the O2 molecule and facilitates the desorption of oxygen intermediate. This finding will be very helpful for the comprehension of the synergistic effect of topological defects and heteroatom dopants for boosting the electrocatalytic performance of nanocarbon toward H2O2 production.

Keywords

fullereneelectrochemical hydrogen peroxide productionoxygen reduction reactioncarbon nanomaterials

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Nano Research
Volume 17 Issue 3,
March 2024
Pages 1217-1224
DOI: 10.1007/s12274-023-5999-x
Cite this article:
Shen W, Zhang C, Alomar M, et al. Fullerene-derived boron-doped defective nanocarbon for highly selective H2O2 electrosynthesis. Nano Research, 2024, 17(3): 1217-1224. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5999-x
Topics:
ElectrocatalystsFullerenes Oxygen reduction reaction

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Received: 18 May 2023
Revised: 27 June 2023
Accepted: 13 July 2023
Published: 25 September 2023
© Tsinghua University Press 2023
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