Fe-N-Doped Mesoporous Carbon with Dual Active Sites Loaded on Reduced Graphene Oxides for Efficient Oxygen Reduction Catalysts

Chao Zhang; Jun Liu; Yixing Ye; Zabeada Aslam; Rik Brydson; Changhao Liang

doi:10.1021/acsami.7b14443

Fe-N-Doped Mesoporous Carbon with Dual Active Sites Loaded on Reduced Graphene Oxides for Efficient Oxygen Reduction Catalysts

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2018 Jan 24;10(3):2423-2429. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b14443. Epub 2018 Jan 12.

Authors

Chao Zhang^{1

2}, Jun Liu¹, Yixing Ye¹, Zabeada Aslam³, Rik Brydson³, Changhao Liang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Materials Physics and Anhui Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, Institute of Solid State Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Hefei 230031, China.
² University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei 230026, China.
³ Institute for Materials Research, School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds , Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom.

PMID: 29298036
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b14443

Abstract

Transition metal/nitrogen/carbon (M-N/C) catalysts are considered as one of the most promising candidates to replace Pt/C catalysts for oxygen reduction reactions (ORRs). Here, we have designed novel reduced graphene oxide (rGO)-supported Fe-N-doped carbon (Fe-N-C/rGO) catalysts via simple pyrolysis of polypyrrole (Ppy)-FeO-GO composites. The as-prepared catalysts induced an onset potential of 0.94 V and a half-wave potential of 0.81 V in alkaline solutions, which is much better than those of the counterpart N-C and N-C/rGO catalysts and comparable to that of Pt/C catalysts. Moreover, the Fe-N-C/rGO catalysts showed improved durability and higher tolerance against methanol crossover than Pt/C in alkaline solutions. This superior ORR performance can be ascribed to the combined catalytic effect of both Fe-based nanoparticles (Fe₃O₄, Fe₄C) and Fe-N_x sites, as well as fast mass transfer and accessible active sites benefiting from the mesoporous structure and high specific surface area. This work provides new insight for synthesis of a more promising nonplatinum electrocatalyst for metal-air batteries and fuel-cell applications.

Keywords: Fe−N−C catalyst; dual active sites; electrocatalysis; oxygen reduction reaction; porous carbon.