Doping strategy, properties and application of heteroatom-doped ordered mesoporous carbon

To date, tremendous achievements have been made to produce ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC) with well-designed and controllable porous structure for catalysis, energy storage and conversion. However, OMC as electrode material suffers from poor hydrophilicity and weak electrical conductivity. Numerous attempts and much research interest have been devoted to dope different heteroatoms in OMC as the structure defects to enhance its performance, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur, boron, and multi heteroatoms. Unfortunately, the “how–why–what” question for the heteroatom-doped OMC has not been summarized in any published reports. Therefore, this review focuses on the functionalization strategies of heteroatoms in OMC and the corresponding process characteristics, including in situ method, post treatment method, and chemical vapor deposition. The fundamentally influencing mechanisms of various heteroatoms in electrochemical property and porous structure are summarized in detail. Furthermore, this review provides an updated summary about the applications of different heteroatom-doped OMC in supercapacitor, electrocatalysis, and ion battery during the last decade. Finally, the future challenges and research strategies for heteroatom-doped OMC are also proposed.