Porous N-Doped Carbon Nanospheres as Highly Efficient ORR Electrocatalysts in Zn-Air Battery

The exploitation of efficient and stable carbon-based oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalysts is the key to zinc-air batteries (ZABs). Herein, we prepared nitrogen-doped carbon nanospheres (N–C) as electrocatalysts for ZABs by a simple soft-template strategy. The unique structural design forms a stable spherical structure with a large specific surface area, and the introduction of N regulates the electronic structure and increases the defect sites, making the N–C catalysts show impressive ORR activity and stability. In addition, ZABs formed by N–C catalyst demonstrates a high peak power density of 167.43 mW cm–2, a large specific capacity of 719.61 mA h gZn–1 and remarkable stability exceeding 480 h. This work offers a novel strategy for the synthesis of nitrogen-doped porous carbon electrocatalysts with abundant active defect sites for high-performance electrochemical applications.