Nitrogen doped large mesoporous carbon for oxygen reduction electrocatalyst using DNA as carbon and nitrogen precursor

By using herring sperm DNA as carbon and nitrogen precursor and commercial hydrophilic nano-CaCO3 as hard-template, a one step and green method to synthesize nitrogen doped large mesoporous carbon (N-LMC) is presented. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), nitrogen adsorption-desorption and X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) were employed to confirm the characterizations of N-LMC. The as-prepared material exhibited higher electrocatalytic activity for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) than LMC. Moreover, the influence of different amounts of N-bonding configurations formed at different carbonization temperatures in N-LMC for the ORR was researched. Results indicated that N-LMC treated at 800 degrees C (N-LMC-800) with high amounts of pyridinic N and graphitic N showed improved electrocatalytic activity for the ORR. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.