Porous B-doped graphene inspired by Fried-Ice for supercapacitors and metal-free catalysts

Abstract

An easy and efficient approach inspired by the ‘Fried-Ice’ concept has been developed for the preparation of boron-doped graphene (B-G) with porous morphologies. The morphology, boron content, and specific surface area (SSA) of these porous graphenes could be well tuned by controlling the reaction temperature. Because of the steam etching effect, the as-prepared porous B-Gs have a high SSA of up to 622 m² g⁻¹. The porous B-doped graphene electrodes show promising performance in supercapacitors with a gravimetric capacitance of up to 281 F g⁻¹. As metal-free electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction in alkaline medium, these electrodes facilitate the four-electron transfer process with high performances in limited current density and high onset potential (−0.12 V vs. SCE) that is close to that of the commercial Pt/C (40 wt%) and excellent tolerance to methanol and carbon monoxide.