Hollow mesoporous metal-nitrogen-carbon electrocatalysts with enhanced oxygen reduction activity for zinc-air batteries.

While great advances have been achieved in Zn-air batteries, porous cathode catalysts remain crucial and challenging to promote diffusion and boost oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Herein, an effective strategy has been developed for the synthesis of hollow metal-nitrogen-carbon electrocatalysts to achieve the macro-/meso-/microporous structure. The h-CuNC electrocatalyst exhibits good stability and high ORR activity with a half-wave potential of 0.