Nitrogen-doped micropore-dominant carbon derived from waste pine cone as a promising metal-free electrocatalyst for aqueous zinc/air batteries

The exploitation for highly effective and low-cost metal-free catalysts with facile and environmental friendly method for oxygen reduction reaction is still a great challenge. To find an effective method for catalyst synthesis, in this manuscript, waste biomass pine cone is employed as raw material and nitrogen-doped micropore-dominant carbon material with excellent ORR catalytic activity is successfully synthesized. The as-prepared N-doped micropore-dominant carbon possesses a high surface area of 1556 m2 g−1. In addition, this carbon electrocatalyst loaded electrode exhibits a high discharge voltage 1.07 V at the current density of 50 mA cm−2, which can be ascribed to the rich micropores and high content of pyridinic N of the prepared carbon, indicative of great potential in the application of zinc/air batteries.