The Polymer Society of Korea

Abstract

Metal-free oxygen-containing carbon materials have emerged as efficient materials for electrochemical hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) production via the two-electron oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). However, scalable control of oxygen functionalities while maintaining high selectivity remains challenging. Herein, we report a scalable and sustainable Friedel-Crafts-assisted carbonization strategy to convert lignin into oxygen-containing carbon materials for H₂O₂ production. The crosslinking reaction stabilizes the lignin framework, significantly improving the carbon yield from 37% to 51%. The optimized lignin-derived carbon material exhibits H₂O₂ selectivity exceeding 95%, a high H₂O₂ production rate of 575.5 mmol g_cat^-1 h^-1 at 0.4 V_RHE, and stable operation over 40 h. This study demonstrates lignin as a sustainable and low-cost precursor for metal-free carbon materials and provides insights into structure-function relationships of oxygen functionalities for decentralized H₂O₂ production.