Industrially producing H₂O₂ consumes lots of energy and generates byproducts. For the first time, we demonstrate the non-energy-consuming, self-powered production of H₂O₂ based on a Zn–air battery with oxygenated carbon electrocatalyst. The battery with power density of 360 W mgeo^–2 at a operating voltage of 0.8 V exhibited high H₂O₂ production rate of 5.93 mol mgeo^–2 h^–1. By tuning the ratio of the oxygen-containg groups, the origin of the high activity was investigated. Combining the DFT calculations, we found that C–O–C and −CHO contribute more to the H₂O₂ production compared to other functional groups.

    https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsami.8b11703