Biomass waste-derived nitrogen and iron co-doped nanoporous carbons as electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction

•Biomass-derived carbons are appropriate precursors for fuel cell electrocatalysts.•Microporosity and graphitic domains play a determining role in electroactivity.•Catalysts become active upon two thermal treatments and one acid etching.•Fe-N4-C and nitrogen functionalities are created on activated carbon matrix. Biomass from agricultural by-products is gaining increasing interest as cheap and abundant precursor in the development of active materials for efficient and environmentally friendly devices like fuel cells. Herein, we investigated iron and nitrogen co-doped nanoporous carbons derived from aronia, peach stones and coal tar pitch/furfural as electrocatalysts for the electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in alkaline media. Urea was used as nitrogen precursor and two annealing steps with intermediate acid leaching served to activate the catalysts. Within the series, the peach stone-derived catalyst exhibited a catalytic activity for the ORR close to the benchmark Pt/C, with a 60 mV dec−1 Tafel slope upon the incorporation of 0.57 wt% Fe and proper combination of N-Fe species (20%) with pyridinic/pyridonic moieties (49%). We concluded that the microporosity and a certain content of meso/macro-pores of the activated carbon, together with the creation of graphitic domains result in a high relative amount of Fe-N4 and nitrogen functionalities, which determine the electrocatalytic performance. [Display omitted]