A novel Fe/N/C electrocatalyst prepared from a carbon-supported iron(ii) complex of macrocyclic ligands for oxygen reduction reaction

Dawei Xu; Yuanyuan Fu; Dejian Xiao; Xuhui Li; Yefei Wang; Kai Li; Zhongfeng Li; Lirong Zheng; Xia Zuo

doi:10.1039/d0ra09730f

A novel Fe/N/C electrocatalyst prepared from a carbon-supported iron(ii) complex of macrocyclic ligands for oxygen reduction reaction

RSC Adv. 2021 Feb 24;11(15):8437-8443. doi: 10.1039/d0ra09730f. eCollection 2021 Feb 23.

Authors

Dawei Xu¹, Yuanyuan Fu¹, Dejian Xiao¹, Xuhui Li¹, Yefei Wang¹, Kai Li¹, Zhongfeng Li¹, Lirong Zheng², Xia Zuo¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Capital Normal University Beijing 100048 China zuoxia@mail.cnu.edu.cn 2180702049@cnu.edu.cn.
² Department Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100049 P. R. China.

Abstract

Herein, we report a novel method to synthesize Fe/N/C composites from a carbon-supported iron (ii) coordination complex of 2,3-dicyanotetraazabenzotriphenylene (2,3-DCTBT) ligands towards oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in alkaline media. We investigated the influence of different temperatures during the thermal carbonization process on the performance of the catalyst, and Fe/N/C-900 stood out among all other samples because of the existence of Fe-N _x active sites. The as-obtained Fe/N/C-900 exhibited excellent electrochemical performance (E _onset is 0.98 V vs. RHE in 0.1 M KOH) for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) compared with the commercial 20% Pt/C. Moreover, this catalyst possessed good stability and high tolerance to methanol, and followed the four-electron mechanism (n = 3.97). Remarkably, the use of 2,3-DCTBT for the first time as a precursor has opened new avenues to prepare electrocatalysts for ORR.