Nitrogen-doped porous carbon embedded with cobalt nanoparticles for excellent oxygen reduction reaction

Yaxiang Lu; Xin Wen; Xuecheng Chen; Paul K Chu; Tao Tang; Ewa Mijowska

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2019.03.083

Nitrogen-doped porous carbon embedded with cobalt nanoparticles for excellent oxygen reduction reaction

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2019 Jun 15:546:344-350. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.03.083. Epub 2019 Mar 25.

Authors

Yaxiang Lu¹, Xin Wen², Xuecheng Chen³, Paul K Chu⁴, Tao Tang⁵, Ewa Mijowska²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, UK.
² Nanomaterials Physicochemistry Department, Faculty of Chemical Technology and Engineering, West Pomeranian University of Technology, Szczecin, Piastów Ave. 42, 71-065 Szczecin, Poland.
³ Nanomaterials Physicochemistry Department, Faculty of Chemical Technology and Engineering, West Pomeranian University of Technology, Szczecin, Piastów Ave. 42, 71-065 Szczecin, Poland; State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, China. Electronic address: xchen@ciac.ac.cn.
⁴ Department of Physics and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China. Electronic address: paul.chu@cityu.edu.hk.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, China. Electronic address: ttang@ciac.ac.cn.

PMID: 30927598
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.03.083

Abstract

Nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbon (CN_x-Co) samples embedded with cobalt nanoparticles are selectively prepared with polyethylenimine (PEI) as both the carbon and nitrogen sources. By processing at different temperature, CN_x-Co-800 and CN_x-Co-1000 are selectively prepared and the materials exhibit excellent electrocatalytic activity in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). The ORR measurements show that sample processed at the higher temperature delivers better performance due to the larger Co and graphitic nitrogen concentrations. CN_x-Co-1000 also shows more tolerance against methanol crossover and outstanding durability towards ORR, making it a promising Pt-free electrocatalyst for ORR under alkaline conditions. The method demonstrated here is a general strategy to prepare other metal or metal alloy/porous carbon hybrid materials.

Keywords: Cobalt nanoparticles; Nitrogen-doped porous carbon; Non-precious metal catalysts; ORR.