3D Porous Fe/N/C spherical nanostructures as high-performance electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction in both alkaline and acidic media

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DOI	Resolve DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.7b12666
Author	Search for: Wei, Qiliang; Search for: Zhang, Gaixia; Search for: Yang, Xiaohua; Search for: Chenitz, Régis; Search for: Banham, Dustin; Search for: Yang, Lijun; Search for: Ye, Siyu; Search for: Knights, Shanna; Search for: Sun, Shuhui
Format	Text, Article
Subject	3D; Fe/N/C; nonprecious metal catalyst; oxygen reduction reaction; porous
Abstract	Exploring inexpensive and high-performance nonprecious metal catalysts (NPMCs) to replace the rare and expensive Pt-based catalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is crucial for future low-temperature fuel cell devices. Herein, we developed a new type of highly efficient 3D porous Fe/N/C electrocatalyst through a simple pyrolysis approach. Our systematic study revealed that the pyrolysis temperature, the surface area, and the Fe content in the catalysts largely affect the ORR performance of the Fe/N/C catalysts, and the optimized parameters have been identified. The optimized Fe/N/C catalyst, with an interconnected hollow and open structure, exhibits one of the highest ORR activity, stability and selectivity in both alkaline and acidic conditions. In 0.1 M KOH, compared to the commercial Pt/C catalyst, the 3D porous Fe/N/C catalyst exhibits ∼6 times better activity (e.g., 1.91 mA cm–2 for Fe/N/C vs 0.32 mA cm–2 for Pt/C, at 0.9 V) and excellent stability (e.g., no any decay for Fe/N/C vs 35 mV negative half-wave potential shift for Pt/C, after 10000 cycles test). In 0.5 M H2SO4, this catalyst also exhibits comparable activity and better stability comparing to Pt/C catalyst. More importantly, in both alkaline and acidic media (RRDE environment), the as-synthesized Fe/N/C catalyst shows much better stability and methanol tolerance than those of the state-of-the-art commercial Pt/C catalyst. All these make the 3D porous Fe/N/C nanostructure an excellent candidate for non-precious-metal ORR catalyst in metal–air batteries and fuel cells.
Publication date	2017-10-05
Publisher	ACS
In	ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 9, no. 42: 36944–36954.
Language	English
Peer reviewed	Yes
NRC publication	This is a non-NRC publication "Non-NRC publications" are publications authored by NRC employees prior to their employment by NRC.
NPARC number	23002485
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Record identifier	9f231b92-4db5-41e5-a140-4212a5c621f9
Record created	2017-11-16
Record modified	2020-05-30

Date modified:: 2025-11-17