Functionalized Carbon Dots on Graphene as Outstanding Non-Metal Bifunctional Oxygen Electrocatalyst

Carbon-based bifunctional electrocatalysts for both oxygen reduction and evolution reactions are potentially cost-effective to replace noble metals in energy devices such as fuel cells, metal-air batteries, and photoelectrochemical converters, but enrichment of active sites holds the key to efficiency. Here, graphene frameworks with heteroatom-doped carbon dots (CDs) are developed via a hydrothermal route followed by pyrolysis. The CDs are rationally prepared with careful selection of heteroatoms, embedded on the substrate to provide enriched active sites. Structural characterizations (e.g., transmission electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy) reveal the successful addition of CDs with nitrogen and sulfur species. Especially, a heat-treated N,S codoped sample, NS-CD@gf_a900, exhibits the optimum oxygen electrocatalysis, even closer to noble-metal counterparts, as a result of the effect of active sites of the CDs and the synergistic behavior of N and S. Considering the importance of size and dopants of the material, this approach not only suggests a straightforward preparation route of nanocarbons, but also appoints the utilization of a new class of non-metal species as efficient oxygen electrocatalysts.