The preparation detail of CP is schematically illustrated in
Fig. 1a, and the N-doped biomass carbon is expected to be obtained. As shown in
Fig. 1b, all the samples display five characteristic peaks indexed to (120), (131), (300), (160), and (421) crystal planes, which means that γ-MnO
2 is successfully synthesized by electro-deposition corresponding to JCPDS No. 14-0644 [
104], and the broad peaks at around 26° belonging to (002) crystal plane of carbon for CP-10, CP-20, CP-30, and CP-40 are also observed [
100]. Compared with CP-0, a new peak at around 1025 cm
−1 corresponding to Mn-O-C bond is observed in the FTIR spectrum of CP-20 (
Fig. 1c), which once again demonstrates the successful recombination of CP and γ-MnO
2 for CP-20. The characteristic planes of CP and γ-MnO
2 are also observed in SAED pattern (
Fig. 1d), and the HRTEM images of CP-20 indicate that the interplanar spacings of 0.162 and 0.241 nm are well indexed to the lattice planes of (160) and (131) for γ-MnO
2 (
Fig. 1e,
f), which further confirms the accuracy of the analytical result from
Fig. 1b,
d.
Figure 1g shows a successful loading of γ-MnO
2 nanoparticles on the surface of irregular flower-like CP. The EDS result shows a uniform element distribution of Mn, O, C, and N for CP-20 (
Fig. 1h-k), and the XPS result once again affirms the coexistence of Mn, O, C, and N on the surface of CP-20 (
Fig. 1l-o). Besides, Fig. S1 certifies the existence of Mn and O elements for CP-0, and Figs. S2, S3, and S4 also reveal the existence of Mn, O, C, and N elements for CP-10, CP-30, and CP-40 respectively, meanwhile the coexistence of Mn
3+ and Mn
4+ is revealed for all the samples.