One‐Pot Purification and Iodination of Waste Kish Graphite into High‐Quality Electrocatalyst

Kish graphite, a waste (called dust) from a steelmaking process, can be simultaneously purified and functionalized by mechanochemical ball‐milling in the presence of iodine. The resultant iodinated Kish graphite (I‐Kish‐G) contains low content of impurities and high iodine content (1.83 at%, 16.17 wt%, energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy) with high crystallinity. It has high specific surface area (924.3 m² g⁻¹), indicating that I‐Kish‐G is significantly purified, functionalized, and exfoliated into a few graphitic layers. More importantly, I‐Kish‐G displays outstanding electrocatalytic activity for oxygen reduction reaction with long‐term durability and robustness against methanol crossover and CO poisoning effects in alkaline media.