functionalization modification, and high physical and
chemical stability and is non-toxic and rich in raw mate-
rials [40–42]. In addition, the nitrogen content is high,
making it one of the known N-rich compounds [43].
The most important thing is that it has a variety of 2D
or 3D structures that can be obtained by controlling the
synthesis conditions [44–46]. Nitrogen-doped carbon
materials generally have a synthesis temperature above
800 °C, which satisfies the requirements for removing
the template [47]. Therefore, it is possible to utilize g-
C
3
N
4
that only contains carbon and nitrogen elements
to synthesize N-doped carbon materials [ 48 ]. In the
present work, g-C
3
N
4
is used as a template and N source
simultaneously to prepare porous carbon structures with
high specific surface area (954 m
2
g
−1
) and 5.71% N con-
tent is achieved, which exhibits comparable ORR activ-
ity, superior durability, and methanol tolerance to Pt/C
reference electrocatalyst.
Methods
Materials
Potassium hydroxide (KOH) and potassium chloride
(KCl) were obtained from Sinopharm Chemical Reagent
Co., Ltd. Potassium hexacyanoferrate (K
3
[Fe(CN)
6
]) were
obtained from Tianjin Yongsheng Fine Chemical Co.,
Ltd. Urea were obtained from Beijing Chemical Corp.
All of the above drugs are analytically pure. Naifon® per-
fluorinated solution (5 wt. % in mixture of lower ali-
phatic alcohols and water, contains 45% water) was
purchased from Sigma-Aldrich.
Synthesis of g-C
3
N
4
Template
Typically, 15 g of urea in 100 mL crucible was kept at
550 °C for 4 h. The g-C
3
N
4
was acquired and grounded
to light yellow powder for later use after cooling to room
temperature.
Synthesis of g-C3N4@dopamine Precursors
0.5 g g-C
3
N
4
was dispersed in 20 mL DA solution. The
concentration of DA was 0.3 M. The mixture was ultra-
sonicated for 2 h and transferred into an autoclave
followed by heating at 120 °C for 10 h. The resulted
sample was centrifuged and washed followed by drying
at 80 °C overnight. Three heating temperatures of 120
°C, 140 °C, and160 °C were used for preparing g-C
3
N
4
/
PDA precursors, and the corresponding samples
were named g-C
3
N
4
/PDA-120, g-C
3
N
4
/PDA-140, and
g-C
3
N
4
/P DA-160, respectively.
Preparation of Nitrogen-Doped 2D Carbon Materials
The precursors of g-C
3
N
4
/PDA-120, g-C
3
N
4
/PDA-140,
and g-C
3
N
4
/PDA-160 were heated to 900 °C for 2 h in ni-
trogen atmosphere. After cooling to room temperature,
nitrogen-doped porous carbon samples named NC-120,
NC-140, and NC-160 (NC-T) were synthesized. However,
the attempt for further decreasing heating temperature to
100 °C induced very poor coating of DA on g-C
3
N
4
,which
resulted in low yield after sintering at 900 °C. Therefore,
three temperatures of 120 °C, 140 °C, and 160 °C were
chosen for further investigation. The synthesis process of
nitrogen-doped porous carbon samples is shown in
Scheme 1.
Electrochemical Measurement
Electrochemical analysis was fulfilled by the DyneChe m
electrochemical workstation, and Ag/AgCl and platinum
are used as reference electrode and counter electrode,
respectively. The cyclic voltampis wa s tested in 0.1 M
potassium hydroxide solution. The glass carbon elec-
trode (GCE) was polished and washed before usin g. To
prepare the working electrodes, aliquots of 5 μL and 2.5
mg/mL NC-120, NC-140, NC-160, Pt/C solutions were
dipped on to GCE for further test.
Characterization
The structure and chemical composition of the NC-T
was analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) (D-MAX II A
X-ray diffractometer), transmission electron microscopy
(TEM) (Tecnai F20), scanning electron microscope
(SEM) (JEOL7610), fourier transform infrared (FT-IR)
(Nicolet iS50) spectra, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
(XPS) (Kratos Axis Ult raDLD), and Raman (Horiba,
Japan); N2 adsorption-desorption (77 K) isotherms were
carried out on a Micromeritics ASAP 2020 instrument
(MICROSENSOR, USA).
Results and Discussion
SEM and TEM Characterization
In order to determine the morphology of the synthesized
samples, SEM and TEM are used for structure observa-
tion as shown in Fig. 1. Figure 1a represents the sheet
structure of as-synthesized g-C
3
N
4
. The 2D structure of
g-C
3
N
4
is further confirmed from Fig. 1b, which is simi-
lar with the previous report [48]. For g-C
3
N
4
/PDA-120
as shown in Fig. 1c, d, the SEM image is similar with
that of g-C
3
N
4
. However, the TEM image of g-C
3
N
4
/
PDA-120 shows well-dispersed sheet like morphology,
compared with as-synthesized g-C
3
N
4
. With the increas-
ing heating temperature from 120 to 160 °C, the thin la-
mellar structure of carbonized layer could be observed
(Additional file 1: Figure S1). After sintering at 900 °C,
the SEM images appear honeycomb-like structures as
shown in Fig. 1e due to the pyrolysis of g-C
3
N
4
template,
inducing porous carbon structures as shown in Fig. 1fand
Additional file 1: Figure S2. The thermo-gravity test of g-
C
3
N
4
was carried out to determine the residue of g-C
3
N
4
,
and g-C
3
N
4
begins to decompose at 520 °C. Under nitro-
gen protection, fully decomposition is confirmed at 760 °C
Li et al. Nanoscale Research Letters (2019) 14:249 Page 2 of 9