MOF-derived Co-decorated ZnO@carbon nanorods as highly efficient electrocatalysts for hydrogen peroxide production in alkaline media.

Electrocatalytic two-electron (2e) oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is one of the most promising approaches to replace the conventional anthraquinone route for the green and facile synthesis of hydrogen peroxide (HO). In order to address its current deficiencies of low selectivity and poor stability, we proposed a two-step hydrothermal synthesis and pyrolysis method to synthesize the Co-decorated ZnO@carbon nanorods (Co-ZnO/CNRs) as highly efficient electrocatalysts for HO production in alkaline media. Through heteroatom doping and manipulating the local coordination environment, the Co-ZnO/CNRs catalysts exhibited an excellent 2e ORR selectivity for HO electrosynthesis with the higher mass activity of 1210 mA g and selectivity up to 90.4 %, which remained high after 10 h stability test. A combination of experiments and theoretical calculations suggested that the ZnO nanoparticles containing Co atoms possessed the smallest overpotential and free energy because the strong interaction between Co atoms and ZnO leaded to the change in the electronic structures around Co and facilitated the adsorption of the *OOH intermediates, thereby enhancing the selectivity of 2e ORR for HO generation.