Coordination polymer derived Fe-N-C electrocatalysts with high performance for the oxygen reduction reaction in Zn-air batteries

Peng-Peng Guo; Chao Xu; Kun-Zu Yang; Chen Lu; Ping-Jie Wei; Qi-Zhi Ren; Jin-Gang Liu

doi:10.1039/d4dt00520a

Coordination polymer derived Fe-N-C electrocatalysts with high performance for the oxygen reduction reaction in Zn-air batteries

Dalton Trans. 2024 Apr 30;53(17):7605-7610. doi: 10.1039/d4dt00520a.

Authors

Peng-Peng Guo¹, Chao Xu¹, Kun-Zu Yang¹, Chen Lu¹, Ping-Jie Wei¹, Qi-Zhi Ren², Jin-Gang Liu¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials, School of Chemistry & Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, P. R. China. liujingang@ecust.edu.cn.
² School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, P. R. China. qzren@sjtu.edu.cn.

PMID: 38618719
DOI: 10.1039/d4dt00520a

Abstract

Developing high performance noble-metal-free electrocatalysts as an alternative to Pt-based catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in energy conversion devices is highly desirable. We report herein the preparation of a coordination-polymer (CP)-derived Fe/CP/C composite as an electrocatalyst for the ORR with excellent activity and stability both in solution and in Zn-air batteries. The Fe/CP/C catalyst was obtained from the pyrolysis of an iron porphyrin Fe(TPP)Cl (5,10,15,20-tetraphenyl-21H,23H-porphyrin iron(III) chloride) grafted Zn-coordination polymer with dangling functional groups 4,4'-oxybisbenzoic acid and 4,4'-bipyridine ligands. The Fe/CP/C catalyst showed much higher ORR activity with a half-wave potential (E_1/2) of 0.90 V (vs. RHE) than the Fe/C catalyst (E_1/2 = 0.85 V) derived from the carbon-black-supported Fe porphyrins in 0.1 M KOH solution. When Fe/CP/C was used as the cathode electrocatalyst in Zn-air batteries (ZABs), the ZABs achieved a significantly higher open circuit voltage (OCV = 1.43 V) and maximum power density (P_max = 142.8 mW cm^-2) compared with Fe/C (OCV = 1.38 V, P_max = 104.5 mW cm^-2) and commercial 20 wt% Pt/C (OCV = 1.41 V, P_max = 117.6 mW cm^-2). Using dangling functional groups in CP to increase the loading efficiency of iron porphyrins offered a facile method to prepare high-performance noble-metal-free electrocatalysts for the ORR, which may provide promising applications to energy conversion devices.