ZIF-67 incorporated with carbon derived from pomelo peels: A highly efficient bifunctional catalyst for oxygen reduction/evolution reactions

Developing carbon catalyst materials using natural, abundant and renewable resources as precursors plays an increasingly important role in clean energy generation and environmental protection. In this work, N-doped pomelo-peel-derived carbon (NPC) materials were prepared using a widely available food waste—pomelo peels and melamine. The synthetic NPC exhibits well-defined porosities and a highly doped-N content (e.g. 6.38 at% for NPC-2), therefore affords excellent oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalytic activities in alkaline electrolytes. NPC was further integrated with ZIF-67 to form [email protected] hybrids through solvothermal reactions. The hybrid catalysts show substantially enhanced ORR catalytic activities comparable to that of commercial 20 wt% Pt/C. Furthermore, the catalysts also exhibit excellent oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalytic activities. Among all prepared [email protected] hybrids, the optimal composition with ZIF-67 to NPC ratio of 2:1 exhibits the best ORR and OER bifunctional catalytic performance and the smallest ΔE (EOER@10 mA cm−2-EORR@-1 mA cm−2) value of 0.79 V. The catalyst also demonstrated desirable 4-electron transfer pathways and superior catalytic stabilities. The Co-N4 in ZIF-67, electrochemical active surface area, and the strong interactions between ZIF-67 and NPC are attributed as the main contributors to the bifunctional catalytic activities. These factors act synergistically, resulting in substantially enhanced bifunctional catalytic activities and stabilities; consequently, this hybrid catalyst is among the best of the reported bifunctional electrocatalysts and is promising for use in metal-air batteries and fuel cells.