Inflating strategy to fabricate highly dispersed Fe, N co-doped hierarchically porous carbon for ORR and supercapacitor

Doped-carbon nanomaterials as effective electrocatalysts have been received widespread attention in oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and supercapacitors system. Herein, the high-active Fe atoms dispersed on hierarchically porous N-doped carbon (FeNC-X) is synthesized via inflating the Fe-ion-denatured egg-white, followed by activation and pyrolysis. Among them, the as-prepared FeNC-900 for ORR that has an inner-connecting hierarchically porous structure shows a superior performance with a limiting current density of 5.28 mA cm−2 and half-wave potential (E1/2) of 0.839 V (vs RHE), and exhibits a 4 e− ORR pathway in the alkaline medium. FeNC-900 also shows better durability and good methanol tolerance than those of commercial Pt/C. Besides, FeNC-900 exhibits an outstanding specific capacity of 258 F g−1 at 1 A g−1 for supercapacitor. The method presented here may provide a cost-efficient approach to fabricate carbon-based materials for ORR and supercapacitors.