Chitosan/phytic acid hydrogel as a platform for facile synthesis of heteroatom-doped porous carbon frameworks for electrocatalytic oxygen reduction

Development of heteroatom-doped porous carbon frameworks derived from renewable biomaterials is highly desirable. Here we report phytic acid-chitosan (PA-CS) hydrogel as a platform for facile preparation of N, P dual-doped porous carbon networks via direct pyrolysis . The hydrogel system shows great versatility towards incorporating graphene oxide or metal ions, providing a way to introduce graphene sheets or metal nanoparticles into carbon matrix as needed. After the incorporation of graphene, the obtained N, P dual-doped carbon/graphene (NPC/G) sample shows a large specific surface area (1824 m 2  g −1 ), with a mixed meso- and micro-pore volume of 1.04 cm 3  g −1 . Importantly, the NPC/G sample exhibits high activity towards electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction in both alkaline and acidic electrolyte, ensuring a high-performance air catalyst of primary zinc-air batteries. Hopefully, this work provides a new method for the preparation of porous carbon materials with desired properties for catalysis.