A Low‐Cost and Facile Method for the Preparation of Fe‐N/C‐Based Hybrids with Superior Catalytic Performance toward Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Abstract

Fe‐N‐doped graphitic carbon materials exhibit high efficiency and durability for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Although iron has relatively low price, the precursors for carbon and nitrogen used in previous studies have relatively high cost. Here reported is the preparation of highly efficient Fe‐N/C‐based ORR electrocatalysts by use of low‐cost urea as the precursors. Fe‐N/C‐based hybrids are prepared through a two‐step pyrolysis. During the first‐step pyrolysis, the precursors convert into g‐C3N4 with Fe located into the sixfold cavities, which ensures the relatively uniform distribution of Fe. The second‐step pyrolysis converts Fe‐g‐C3N4 into Fe‐N/C‐based hybrids which contain multiple types of active components, Fe moieties (FeCxNy or FeNx), Fe and Fe3N nanoparticles, for ORR. The obtained Fe‐N/C‐based hybrids display a superior electrocatalytic performance for ORR with an onset potential of 0.940 V and half‐wave potential of 0.810 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode, which are comparable to those of Pt/C at the same catalyst loading. The hybrids show higher tolerance to methanol and much greater long‐term stability than commercial Pt/C. The findings provide a cost‐effective approach for the preparation of high efficient and stable electrocatalysts for ORR and will be very helpful to the development of electrochemical energy storage and conversion.

Incorporation of nickel single atoms into carbon paper as self-standing electrocatalyst for CO2reduction

“…In addition, the incorporation of Ni and N atoms in ACP/S-N-Ni disrupts the original graphitic structure of ACP and gives rise to a higher degree of disorder, as evidenced from the almost similar intensity observed of the two broad D and G bands in Raman (Figure 2a). 41 For comparative purposes, we performed a series of control experiments involving CP electrodes synthesized to contain only S (ACP/S), S and N (ACP/S-N), S and Ni (ACP/S-Ni), and N and Ni on non-activated CP (CP/N-Ni) as described in the Experimental Section. Unsurprisingly, XPS shows that ACP/S and ACP/S-N synthesized without the pre-adsorption step of Ni 2+ contain no Ni (Figures S2 and S3, Table S2).…”

Highly effective Fe–N–C electrocatalysts toward oxygen reduction reaction originated from 2,6-diaminopyridine

“…It can be seen from Table 1 that under alkaline conditions, the catalytic performance of Fe-N-C-900-5wt% catalyst is comparable to the similar Fe-N-C catalysts. [49] Fe-N/C 0.93 0.801~5.6 [50] Fe-A-RGO 0.83 0.69~5.8 [51] Fe-N/C 0.94 0.81~4.7 [52] Fe-N-C 0.91 0.814~4.6 [53] Fe/N/C 0.939 0.739~5.3 [54] Fe-N-C-NH 3 0.98 0.85 5.1 [55] Fe-N-C-900-5wt% 0.96 0.84 5.8 This Work…”

Iron polyphthalocyanine-derived ternary-balanced Fe3O4/Fe3N/Fe-N-C@PC as a high-performance electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction

“…2b), the two peaks at 711.2 and 724.8 eV could be assigned to Fe 2+ 2p 3/2 and 2p 1/2 , respectively, while another two peaks at 713.7 and 727.6 eV could be assigned to Fe 3+ 2p 3/2 and 2p 1/2 , respectively [31,32]. The satellite peaks of Fe are located at 718.2 and 732.7 eV, and the peak at 706.7 eV could be attributed to the characteristic peak of Fe 3 N in the catalyst [33][34][35]. In the O 1s spectrum (Fig.…”