Fan, XiaoliZhang, YingyingFan, LonglongGeng, QinghongZhu, WeiDoustkhah, EsmailLi, Cuiling2025-04-162025-04-162024Fan, X., Zhang, Y., Fan, L., Geng, Q., Zhu, W., Doustkhah, E., & Li, C. (2025). A highly efficient metal-free electrocatalyst of nitrogen-doped porous carbon nanoflowers toward oxygen electroreduction. Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 13(4), 2650-2657.20507488http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/d4ta07178fhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12713/6072Metal-free catalysts offer a desirable alternative to traditional metal-based catalysts. However, it remains challenging to improve the catalytic performance of metal-free catalysts to be as promising as that of metal-based materials. Herein, a polymer-assisted method followed by pyrolysis treatment was employed to synthesize nitrogen (N)-doped porous carbon nanoflowers with nanosheet subunits. Leveraging the unique geometry structure and abundant pyridinic-N active sites, the optimized catalyst exhibits a good half-wave potential of 0.85 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (vs. RHE) and long-term stability with only 17.0 mV negative shift of the half-wave potential after 10 000 cyclic voltammetry cycles in alkaline electrolyte. This research presents a viable strategy for advancing metal-free catalysts. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2025.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessElectrocatalystsElectrolytesElectrolytic ReductionNanoflowersPyrolysisArticle13426502657WOS:001378717000001Q110.1039/d4ta07178fQ1