Facile synthetic approaches toward the development of efficient and durable nonprecious metal catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction （ORR） are very important for commercializing advanced electrochemical devices...Facile synthetic approaches toward the development of efficient and durable nonprecious metal catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction （ORR） are very important for commercializing advanced electrochemical devices such as fuel cells and metal-air batteries. Here we report a novel template approach to synthesize mesoporous Fe-N-doped carbon catalysts encapsulated with Fe3C nanoparticles. In this approach, the layer-structured FeOCI was first used as a template for the synthesis of a three- dimensional polypyrrole （PPy） structure. During the removal of the FeOCI template, the Fe^3＋ can be absorbed by PPy and then converted into Fe3C nanoparticles and Fe-N-C sites during the pyrolyzing process. As a result, the as-prepared catalysts could exhibit superior electrocatalytic ORR performance to the commercial Pt/C catalyst in alkaline solutions. Furthermore, the Zn-air battery assembled using the mesoporous carbon catalyst as the air electrode could surpass the commercial Pt/C catalyst in terms of the power density and energy density.展开更多
基金supported by the National Key Basic Research Program of China (No. 2015CB351903)National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51402282)+1 种基金China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2016M590579)the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
文摘Facile synthetic approaches toward the development of efficient and durable nonprecious metal catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction （ORR） are very important for commercializing advanced electrochemical devices such as fuel cells and metal-air batteries. Here we report a novel template approach to synthesize mesoporous Fe-N-doped carbon catalysts encapsulated with Fe3C nanoparticles. In this approach, the layer-structured FeOCI was first used as a template for the synthesis of a three- dimensional polypyrrole （PPy） structure. During the removal of the FeOCI template, the Fe^3＋ can be absorbed by PPy and then converted into Fe3C nanoparticles and Fe-N-C sites during the pyrolyzing process. As a result, the as-prepared catalysts could exhibit superior electrocatalytic ORR performance to the commercial Pt/C catalyst in alkaline solutions. Furthermore, the Zn-air battery assembled using the mesoporous carbon catalyst as the air electrode could surpass the commercial Pt/C catalyst in terms of the power density and energy density.
