Boosting Oxygen Reduction via Integrated Construction and Synergistic Catalysis of Porous Platinum Alloy and Defective Graphitic Carbon

Lei Huang; Ya-Qiong Su; Ruijuan Qi; Dai Dang; Yanyang Qin; Shibo Xi; Shahid Zaman; Bo You; Shujiang Ding; Bao Yu Xia

doi:10.1002/anie.202111426

Boosting Oxygen Reduction via Integrated Construction and Synergistic Catalysis of Porous Platinum Alloy and Defective Graphitic Carbon

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2021 Nov 22;60(48):25530-25537. doi: 10.1002/anie.202111426. Epub 2021 Oct 25.

Authors

Lei Huang¹, Ya-Qiong Su², Ruijuan Qi³, Dai Dang⁴, Yanyang Qin², Shibo Xi⁵, Shahid Zaman¹, Bo You¹, Shujiang Ding², Bao Yu Xia¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Material Chemistry for Energy Conversion and Storage (Ministry of Education), Hubei Key Laboratory of Material Chemistry and Service Failure, Hubei Engineering Research Center for Biomaterials and Medical Protective Materials, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), 1037 Luoyu Rd, Wuhan, 430074, China.
² School of Chemistry, Xi'an Key Laboratory of Sustainable Energy Materials Chemistry, State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Polar Materials and Devices (MOE), Department of Electronics, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China.
⁴ School of Chemical Engineering and Light Industry, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, China.
⁵ Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A✶STAR), 1 Pesek Road, Jurong Island, Singapore, 627833, Singapore.

PMID: 34562296
DOI: 10.1002/anie.202111426

Abstract

Integrated fabrication through the strong interaction between catalyst and carrier is crucial to realize efficient oxygen electrocatalysis for fuel cells. We report herein a porous Pt-rich alloy encapsulated by graphitic carbon via integration engineering, where a synergistic catalysis between ternary PtCuCo alloy and graphitic Co-N-C results in the optimized reaction pathway and improved oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) performance. The hybrid catalyst PtCuCo@Co-N-C delivers a mass activity of 1.14 A mg_Pt ^-1 at 0.9 V vs. RHE and a peak power density of 960 mW cm^-2 in the full-cell assessment, outperforming commercial Pt/C catalyst (0.12 A mg_Pt ^-1 and 780 mW cm^-2 ). Experimental results combined with theoretical simulations suggest that the mutual assistance between porous Pt alloy and Co-N-C accounts for the enhanced catalytic performance. Such integrated engineering concept is significant for strengthening the anti-corrosion capabilities and improving the ORR performance of Pt-based catalysts.

Keywords: cobalt-nitrogen-carbon; graphitic carbon; integrated construction; oxygen reduction reaction; platinum.