Fabrication of 3D heteroatom-doped porous carbons from self-assembly of chelate foams via a solid state method

A novel 3D foam-like porous carbon architectures with homogeneous N doping and unique mesopore-in-macropore structures have been fabricated from metal-organic complex via a facile template-free solid state method, which show high specific surface area (2732 m2 g-1), large pore volume (3.31 cm3 g-1), interconnected hierarchical pore structures with macro/meso/micro multimodal distribution and abundant surface functionality N doping (5.36 wt%). These characteristics afford high catalytic performance for oxygen reduction with an onset potential of 0.98 V (vs RHE) and a half-wave potential of 0.83 V (vs RHE) in alkaline media, which are comparable with those of the commercial 20 wt% Pt/C catalyst and many state-of-the-art noble-metal-free catalysts. These results demonstrate the significant advantages of the unique mesopore-in-macropore porous structures with efficient heteroatom doping, which provides abundant of accessible active sites for highly mass and charge transports. The present work pave a new facile and environmentally benign synthesis strategy for the preparation of 3D porous carbon architectures as efficient electrochemical energy devices and give deep insights into fabricating advanced nanostructured materials.