External" nitrogen doped graphene sheets via pyridyne cycloaddition were fabricated, which can serve as feasible Pt alternatives for oxygen reduction reaction electrocatalysts. Notably, the excellent ORR performance of PyNGs can be attributed to the possible adsorption and catalytic site of the ortho-carbon of "external" nitrogen.

Iron phthalocyanine (FePc) coordinated with pyridyne cycloaddition of graphene sheets (PyNGs) as a high-performance electrocatalyst for ORR was fabricated.

Preparing metal-supported graphene nanocomposites is both interesting and challenging because of their well-defined morphologies and have potential application for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Here, we present an easy approach to synthesizing a novel hybrid material composed of Pt@Au nanorods (NRs) uniformly dispersed on the pyridyne cycloaddition of graphene (Pt@Au-PyNG), and the material serves as a high-performance catalyst for ORR. This hybrid electrocatalyst significantly decreases the use of Pt by using Pt dispersed on Au NRs and shows a markedly high activity toward ORR. The resulting Pt@Au-PyNG hybrid displayed comparable electrocatalytic activity and better stability than commercial Pt/C in alkaline solutions toward ORR. The hybrid effectively blocks CO formation to increase catalyst resistance to CO poisoning, thereby decreasing the amount of Pt needed. Free-energy diagrams for ORR on Pt@Au (111) through dissociative and associative mechanisms show that OH or O hydrogenation is the rate-limiting step based on DFT calculations.

No abstract