Plasma treatments are well-known to enable a tuning of surface functionalities for carbon-based materials. In this work, CO2 and O2 plasma treatments were used to investigate the effect on structural composition and electrocatalytic activity and selectivity for the electroreduction of oxygen. The catalysts are characterized by X-ray induced photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy as well as N2 sorption. Activity and selectivity measurements are made with a rotating rind disk electrode (RRDE) setup in 0.1 M H2SO4. © The Electrochemical Society.