Air plasma etching towards rich active sites in Fe/N-porous carbon for the oxygen reduction reaction with superior catalytic performance

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (32) ◽  
pp. 16605-16610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenhua Zhong ◽  
Jiaxiang Chen ◽  
Peixin Zhang ◽  
Libo Deng ◽  
Lei Yao ◽  
...  

Plasma etching removed less stable carbons and exposed the active sites in Fe–N/C catalysts which resulted in excellent performances towards the oxygen reduction reaction in both acidic and alkaline media.

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 843-852
Author(s):  
Hunan Jiang ◽  
Jinyang Li ◽  
Mengni Liang ◽  
Hanpeng Deng ◽  
Zuowan Zhou

AbstractAlthough Fe–N/C catalysts have received increasing attention in recent years for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), it is still challenging to precisely control the active sites during the preparation. Herein, we report FexN@RGO catalysts with the size of 2–6 nm derived from the pyrolysis of graphene oxide and 1,1′-diacetylferrocene as C and Fe precursors under the NH3/Ar atmosphere as N source. The 1,1′-diacetylferrocene transforms to Fe3O4 at 600°C and transforms to Fe3N and Fe2N at 700°C and 800°C, respectively. The as-prepared FexN@RGO catalysts exhibited superior electrocatalytic activities in acidic and alkaline media compared with the commercial 10% Pt/C, in terms of electrochemical surface area, onset potential, half-wave potential, number of electrons transferred, kinetic current density, and exchange current density. In addition, the stability of FGN-8 also outperformed commercial 10% Pt/C after 10000 cycles, which demonstrates the as-prepared FexN@RGO as durable and active ORR catalysts in acidic media.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 3846 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao Luo ◽  
Wuli Han ◽  
Han Ren ◽  
Qingzuo Zhuang

Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) provides a vital role for microbial fuel cells (MFCs) due to its slow reaction kinetics compared with the anodic oxidation reaction. How to develop new materials with low cost, high efficacy, and eco-friendliness which could replace platinum-based electrocatalysis is a challenge that we have to resolve. In this work, we accomplished this successfully by means of a facile strategy to synthesize a metallic organic framework-derived Fe, N, S co-doped carbon with FeS as the main phase. The Fe/S@N/C-0.5 catalyst demonstrated outstandingly enhanced ORR activity in neutral PBS and alkaline media, compared to that of commercial 20% Pt-C catalyst. Here, we started-up and operated two parallel single-chamber microbial fuel cells of an air cathode, and those cathode catalysts were Fe/S@N/C-0.5 and commercial Pt-C (20% Pt), respectively. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) elaborated that the Fe/S@N/C-0.5 composite did not change the polyhedron morphology of ZIF-8. According to X-ray diffractometry(XRD) curves, the main crystal phase of the resulted Fe/S@N/C-0.5 was FeS. The chemical environment of N, S, and Fe which are anticipated to be the high-efficiency active sites of ORR for MFCs were investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic(XPS). Nitrogen adsorption/desorption techniques were used to calculate the pore diameter distribution. In brief, the obtained Fe/S@N/C-0.5 material exhibited a pronounced reduction potential at 0.861 V (versus Reversible Hydrogen Electrode(RHE)) in 0.1M KOH solution and –0.03 V (vs. SCE) in the PBS solution, which both outperform the benchmark platinum-based catalysts. Fe/S@N/C-0.5-MFC had a higher Open Circuit Voltage(OCV) (0.71 V), stronger maximum power density (1196 mW/m2), and larger output voltage (0.47 V) than the Pt/C-MFC under the same conditions.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (10) ◽  
pp. 4868-4878 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lili Huo ◽  
Baocang Liu ◽  
Geng Zhang ◽  
Rui Si ◽  
Jian Liu ◽  
...  

2D Layered meso-M/N-C/N-G nanocomposites with high specific surface area, homogeneous distribution of ultra-small M-N-C nanoparticles less than 5 nm, and mesopores with a size of ∼3.6 nm exhibit excellent electrocatalytic activity toward oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in acidic and alkaline media.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 1526-1532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhengping Zhang ◽  
Xinjin Gao ◽  
Meiling Dou ◽  
Jing Ji ◽  
Feng Wang

Fe–Nxmoiety-modified nitrogen-doped hierarchically porous carbon, which is derived from porphyra, exhibits an excellent catalytic performance for oxygen reduction.


2013 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 956-967 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana M Gómez-Marín ◽  
Ruben Rizo ◽  
Juan M Feliu

The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is a pivotal process in electrochemistry. Unfortunately, after decades of intensive research, a fundamental knowledge about its reaction mechanism is still lacking. In this paper, a global and critical view on the most important experimental and theoretical results regarding the ORR on Pt(111) and its vicinal surfaces, in both acidic and alkaline media, is taken. Phenomena such as the ORR surface structure sensitivity and the lack of a reduction current at high potentials are discussed in the light of the surface oxidation and disordering processes and the possible relevance of the hydrogen peroxide reduction and oxidation reactions in the ORR mechanism. The necessity to build precise and realistic reaction models, which are deducted from reliable experimental results that need to be carefully taken under strict working conditions is shown. Therefore, progress in the understanding of this important reaction on a molecular level, and the choice of the right approach for the design of the electrocatalysts for fuel-cell cathodes is only possible through a cooperative approach between theory and experiments.


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