Nitrogen, sulfur co-doped carbon coated zinc sulfide for efficient hydrogen peroxide electrosynthesis

Oxygen electroreduction (ORR) via a two-electron pathway is a promising alternative for hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) synthesis in small-scale applications. In this work, nitrogen and sulfur co-doped carbon coated zinc sulfide nanoparticles (ZnS@C) are synthesized using facile high-temperature annealing. In an alkaline electrolyte, the presence of ZnS suppresses the reduction of H2O2 during the ORR and contributes to high H2O2 selectivity (∼90%) over a wide potential range (0.40–0.80 V). Continuous generation of H2O2 is in turn achieved at an outstanding rate of 1.485 mol gcat.−1 h−1 with a faradaic efficiency of 93.7%.