1. Achieving excellent activity and stability for oxygen reduction electrocatalysis by hollow mesoporous iron–nitrogen-doped graphitic carbon spheres.
- Author
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Zhou, Tingsheng, Zhou, Yao, Ma, Ruguang, Liu, Qian, Zhu, Yufang, and Wang, Jiacheng
- Abstract
The replacement of platinum (Pt) by nonprecious catalysts with superior activity and stability for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) remains challenging for fuel cell devices. Herein, we describe a controllable strategy to prepare hollow graphitic carbon spheres with Fe–N-doped mesoporous shells via in situ polymerization and functionalization. The optimized catalyst exhibits very superior ORR activity with a half-wave potential (E
1/2 ) of 0.886 V in 0.1 M KOH, 15 mV more positive than that of commercial Pt/C catalysts. Even in acidic solution, it also shows a competitive 4e− ORR activity compared to Pt/C. Most importantly, it demonstrates much better long-term stability and resistance to methanol crossover than Pt/C in both alkaline and acidic media. The outstanding activity is contributed by the synergy of chemical functions (Fe–Nx -coordinated moieties) and excellent structural properties (hollow large cores (∼91 nm), open mesopores (∼2.1 nm) throughout the shells, and highly graphitic microstructures), ensuring rapid mass-diffusion and electron-transfer kinetics and full accessibility of catalytic sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2017
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