Hierarchically Porous Carbon Plates Derived from Wood as Bifunctional ORR/OER Electrodes

Abstract Porous carbon electrodes have emerged as important cathode materials for metal–air battery systems. However, most approaches for fabricating porous carbon electrodes from biomass are highly energy inefficient as they require the breaking down of the biomass and its subsequent reconstitution into powder‐like carbon. Here, enzymes are explored to effectively hydrolyze the partial cellulose in bulk raw wood to form a large number of nanopores, which helps to maximally expose the inner parts of the raw wood to sufficiently dope nitrogen onto the carbon skeletons during the subsequent pyrolysis process. The resulting carbons exhibit excellent catalytic activity with respect to the oxygen reduction and…

• NR
  National Research Foundation Singapore

  Award: NRF‐NRF12015‐01.”
• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: 21736003, 31430092, 51402111