Development of high-efficiency oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalysts under neutral conditions has made little research progress. In this work, we synthesized a three-dimensional porous N/P codoped carbon nanosheet composites (CNP@PNS) by high-temperature thermal treatment of dicyandiamide, starch, and triphenylphosphine and subsequent porous structure-making treatment using the NaCl molten salt template. In the neutral solution, the electrocatalytic performance of the CNP@PNS-4 catalyst exhibits an onset potential of 0.98 V (vs reversible hydrogen electrode) and a half-wave potential of 0.91 V for ORR, which greatly surpasses commercial Pt/C (40%). Three kinds of neutral metal−air batteries (Zn−air, Al−air, and Fe−air) using the prepared samples as cathodic catalysts were constructed, corresponding to the maximum power density of 120.2, 78.3, and 18.9 mW•cm −2 , respectively. Also, they reveal outstanding discharge stability under different current densities. The density functional theory calculation depicts the reduction of the free energy of the determining step and subsequent decline of the overpotential for ORR.

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With the growing energy crisis, people urgently need green energy sources to replace fossil ones. As a zero-emission clean energy source, the proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) has received growing attention from researchers due to its broad practical application. However, so far only noble metal Pt can be used as a mature cathodic catalyst for PEMFC to effectively promote the slow kinetic process of the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Herein, a low Pt-loading carbon-based catalyst (pCN@NHCS-Fe/Pt-280) with hollow carbon spheres (HCSs), metal−organic frameworks (MOFs), and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) structure was synthesized by the thermal reduction of platinum acetylacetonate and

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