Interfacial Engineering of Vertically-stacked Graphene/h-BN
Heterostructure as an Efficient Electrocatalyst for Hydrogen Peroxide
Synthesis
Abstract
Recently, in-plane graphene/h-BN (G/h-BN) heterostructure was reported
to be the catalytic activity for H2O2
synthesis by 2 e- oxygen reduction reaction (ORR).
However, there is rare report for the vertically-stacked G/h-BN
heterostructure, which refers to the stacking of graphene domains on the
surface of h-BN. Herein, a simulated chemical vapor deposition method
was proposed for fabricating abundant vertically-stacked G/h-BN
heterostructure by in-situ growing graphene quantum dots (GQDs) on
porous h-BN sheets. The catalytic performance of our vertically-stacked
heterostructure catalyst is superior to the reported carbon-based
electrocatalysts in an alkaline environment, with the
H2O2 selectivity of 90%-99% in a wide
potential range (0.35 V-0.7 V vs. RHE), over 90% faradaic efficiency
and high mass activity of 1167 mmolgcatalyst-1
h-1. The experimental results and density functional
theory simulation verifies that the vertically-stacked heterostructure
possesses greatly catalytic performance for 2 e- ORR
and the edge B atoms in the B-centered AB stacking model are the most
active catalytic sites. This research well demonstrates the promising
catalytic activity for the vertically-stacked G/h-BN heterostructure and
provide a facile route for fabricating other vertically-stacked
heterostructures.