N-Doped Graphene-Coated Commercial Pt/C Catalysts toward High-Stability and Antipoisoning in Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Depei Liu; Jie Zhang; Duanduan Liu; Taozhu Li; Yuandong Yan; Xinying Wei; Yandong Yang; Shicheng Yan; Zhigang Zou

doi:10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c04005

N-Doped Graphene-Coated Commercial Pt/C Catalysts toward High-Stability and Antipoisoning in Oxygen Reduction Reaction

J Phys Chem Lett. 2022 Mar 3;13(8):2019-2026. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c04005. Epub 2022 Feb 23.

Authors

Depei Liu^{1

2}, Jie Zhang¹, Duanduan Liu^{1

2}, Taozhu Li¹, Yuandong Yan¹, Xinying Wei¹, Yandong Yang¹, Shicheng Yan¹, Zhigang Zou^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Eco-materials and Renewable Energy Research Center (ERERC), Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, P.R. China.
² Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Nano Technology, National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, School of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, P.R. China.

PMID: 35195426
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c04005

Abstract

Stability and antipoisoning effects are the main challenges for the application of commercial Pt/C catalysts. Herein, we soaked and adsorbed polydopamine to coat Pt particles on commercial Pt/C and subsequently converted the coatings to few-layer N-doped graphene by calcination to produce Pt/C@NC. The coatings effectively block the direct contact of Pt nanoparticles and electrolyte, thus enhancing the catalyst stability by avoiding Ostwald ripening and suppressing the competitive adsorption of toxicants, contributing to the enhancement of the antipoisoning ability. More importantly, the coatings do not hurt the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity of commercial Pt/C, which exhibits a half wave potential of 0.84 V in an acidic electrolyte. The spectroscopic and theoretical results confirmed that the coatings originate from a strong Pt bonding to pyridinic N of N-doped graphene and that the high ORR activity results from the coordinately unsaturated carbon atoms, as the real ORR active sites, to strongly capture electrons from Pt.