N‐Doped Mesoporous ZnO with Oxygen Vacancies for Stable Hydrazine Electrocatalysis

Abstract Improving the morphology, doping with elements, producing oxygen vacancies and narrowing the energy bandgap are the main targets of research in electrocatalysis. N‐doped ZnO nanostructures with different architectures and N content were successfully obtained by the controllable and facile calcination of ZIF‐8. Meanwhile, N‐doped mesoporous ZnO nanomaterials (with higher N content: 4.38 wt%) with evident oxygen vacancies in the lattice and a narrower energy bandgap (E_g=3.12 eV) were obtained, as elucidated by the peak shift of the XPS, Raman spectrum, along with the analysis of the Tauc plots. As a promising electrocatalyst, this kind of material has attracted much attention because of its low cost, simple synthetic strategy and decent catalytic activity for the determination of hydrazine hydrate. The contributions made from the mesopores, relatively high N content, oxygen vacancy and narrow energy bandgap boost the electrochemical properties of electrocatalysts. Eventually, the assembly of the (N‐doped mesoporous ZnO‐modified) glassy carbon electrode (GCE) displays excellent stability, repeatability and anti‐interference ability with decent sensitivity ranging from 0.5 μM to 8065.5 μM for hydrazine hydrate.