Active Edge‐Site‐Rich Carbon Nanocatalysts with Enhanced Electron Transfer for Efficient Electrochemical Hydrogen Peroxide Production

Abstract A highly efficient, metal‐free carbon nanocatalyst is presented that possesses abundant active, oxygenated graphitic edge sites. The edge site‐rich nanocarbon catalyst exhibits about 28 times higher activity for H 2 O 2 production than a basal plane‐rich carbon nanotube with a H 2 O 2 selectivity over 90 %. The oxidative treatment further promotes the H 2 O 2 generation activity to reach close to the thermodynamic limit. The optimized nanocarbon catalyst shows a very high H 2 O 2 production activity, surpassing previously reported catalysts in alkaline media. Moreover, it can stably produce H 2 O 2 for 16 h with Faradaic efficiency reaching 99 % and accumulated H 2 O 2 concentration of 24±2 m m . Importantly, we find that the heterogeneous electron transfer kinetics of the carbon‐based catalyst is closely related to the electrocatalytic activity, suggesting that first outer‐sphere electron transfer to O 2 is an important step governing the H 2 O 2 production rate.