Fuel
cells are considered as the only viable solution for long-range
electromobility, but very rare and expensive platinum is currently
required for catalyzing the bottleneck reaction therein: oxygen reduction.
Within the search for catalysts that are not based on precious metals,
cobalt corroles were uncovered to fulfill the requirements of high
selectivity and low overpotential. We now report on the electropolymerization
of a specifically designed catalyst, a cobalt(III) complex of tris(4-aminophenyl)corrole,
upon which 3D polymeric structures were obtained. Much better catalytic
activity was obtained by this approach in comparison to monomeric
catalyst, manifested by significantly lower overpotentials, as well
as higher selectivity to the desired 4e–/4H+ pathway. The performance in an alkaline environment makes
it the most active molecular catalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction
reported to date.
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