Sulfur-doped ordered mesoporous carbon with high electrocatalytic activity for oxygen reduction

• Synthesis of novel sulfur-doped ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC-S).
• OMC-S as metal-free electrocatalyst for ORR.
• High electrocatalytic activity and excellent tolerance to crossover effect.
• Sulfide groups (CSC) playing an important role in promoting ORR.

Sulfur-doped ordered mesoporous carbons (OMC-S-X) (X = 1, 2 and 3) with different sulfur contents were synthesized as metal-free electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectra (EDX), nitrogen adsorption–desorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) were employed to confirm the characterizations of OMC and OMC-S. The prepared OMC-S-3 exhibits high electrocatalytic activity, good stability and excellent tolerance to crossover effect for ORR. The high electrocatalytic activity of OMC-S-3 for ORR can be mainly ascribed to the doping of sulfur especially the existence of sulfide groups (CSC) which play an important role in promoting the ORR.

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