Non-Precious Metal-Doped Carbon Materials Derived From Porphyrin-Based Porous Organic Polymers for Oxygen Reduction Electrocatalysis

Chempluschem. 2022 Jul;87(7):e202200168. doi: 10.1002/cplu.202200168. Epub 2022 Jul 5.

Abstract

The cathodic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is important in the development of renewable energy devices, to produce novel and non-precious metal catalysts with high electrocatalytic activity to reduce the consumption of non-renewable platinum (Pt) catalyst. In this work, we developed N-doped and Fe/N dual-doped porous carbons as catalysts for ORR simply by high-temperature pyrolysis of porphyrin-based conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs). By combination of heteroatom doping, highly porous structure and tubular morphology, the as-prepared carbon samples exhibited high electrocatalytic activity with 4-electron transfer mechanism, nearly close to the commercial Pt/C catalyst. In particular, among these samples, the Fe/N-CMP-1000 displayed a higher onset potential (0.95 eV), positive half-wave potential (0.85 eV) and limiting current density value (5.1 mA cm-2 ) as well as good durability and better methanol tolerance contrasting with Pt/C catalyst, suggesting that the as-prepared metal-free catalysts from porphyrin-based CMPs show great potential for ORR.

Keywords: conjugated microporous polymers; oxygen reduction reaction; porous carbon; porphyrin.