Banana peel derived nitrogen-doped porous carbon with enhanced electrocatalytic activity for complete oxidation of methanol under room temperature

4-Amino-TEMPO (TEMPO-NH 2 ) is an organic oxidation catalyst capable of completely oxidizing methanol at room temperature. However, poor electron transfer between bare electrode and catalyst is not conducive to excellent catalytic performance. Herein, banana ( Musa nana ) peel, an abundant biomass waste, was employed as the precursor to prepare banana peel derived nitrogen-doped porous carbon (BPN-PC). The BPN-PC possesses high surface area (302.3 m 2  g −1 ), large pore volume (0.19 cm 3  g −1 ) and abundant defective sites, enabling BPN-PC attractive for the electrochemical applications. The BPN-PC modified glassy carbon electrode with nonimmobilized TEMPO-NH 2 (BPN-PC/GCE-TEMPO-NH 2 system) generates higher oxidation currents for methanol/formaldehyde/formate than those of GCE-TEMPO-NH 2 system. Especially, it exhibits wider linear ranges, higher sensitivities and lower detection limits for the methanol/formaldehyde/formate detection compared with GCE-TEMPO-NH 2 system. In addition, complete oxidation of methanol was further verified by gas mass spectrometer. Employing Prussian blue-multiwalled carbon nanotube composite as cathode, the open circuit voltage (0.53 V) and the maximum power density (106.3 μW cm −2 ) of the assembled BPN-PC-based mild methanol fuel cell are both higher than those of fuel cell without BPN-PC (0.31 V and 24.0 μW cm −2 ). These results suggest the great potential of cost-effective BPN-PC in electrochemical applications.