B,N Co-Doped Three-Dimensional Carbon Aerogels with Excellent Electrochemical Performance for the Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Herein, an ordinary and mass-production approach is reported to synthesize boron (B) and nitrogen (N) co-doped three-dimensional (3D) carbon aerogels (CA) by using glucose and borax as the raw materials by a simple hydrothermal method and then carbonization in NH₃ atmosphere. The porous material (BN-CA-900) possesses a large specific surface area (1032 m² g⁻¹) and high contents of doped pyridinic N and graphitic N. The onset potential (0.91 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode, RHE), half-wave potential (0.77 V vs. RHE), and current density (5.70 mA cm⁻² at 0.2 V vs. RHE) of BN-CA-900 for ORR are similar to those of commercial Pt/C, indicating that BN-CA-900 has a comparable catalytic activity with Pt/C in alkaline media. The number of electron transfer is 3.86–3.99 and the yield of hydrogen peroxide is less than 6.8 %. BN-CA-900 also presents decent catalytic performance in acidic medium. Moreover, the stability and methanol tolerance of BN-CA-900 are superior to commercial Pt/C in both alkaline and acidic media. The prepared BN-CA-900 is a promising candidate that may be applied in other areas, such as the adsorption of pollution, porous conductive electrodes, and lithium-ion batteries.