N,P-coordinated fullerene-like carbon nanostructures with dual active centers toward highly-efficient multi-functional electrocatalysis for CO₂RR, ORR and Zn-air battery

Abstract

N,P-coordinated fullerene-like carbon nanostructures with multifunctions have been synthesized and the active centers for CO2RR and ORR have been extensively studied by experiments and theoretical calculations.

Defect Engineering on Carbon-Based Catalysts for Electrocatalytic CO2 Reduction

“…Incorporation of heteroatoms with different electronegativity in the carbon skeleton will break the periodic structure of the original carbon, and the heteroatoms will replace part of the carbon atoms into the sp 2 hybridized network [94,95]. Heteroatom doping can optimize the electronic structure of carbon materials, redistribute the spin and charge density locally, and improve the surface adsorption/desorption behavior of intermediates [96][97][98][99].…”

Defect Engineering of Carbon‐based Electrocatalysts for Rechargeable Zinc‐air Batteries

“…[35][36]38,63] N, P co-doped carbon have been widely reported as effective bifunctional catalysts for ORR and OER up to now. [23,43,64] To clarify the effect of doping type and location on ORR/OER catalytic activity of N, P co-doped carbon, all possible doping structure types such as isolated N-dopant, isolated P dopant and/or N, P-coupled dopants were constructed. DFT calculations showed that the synergistic effect of co-doped N and P produces superior electrocatalytic OER and ORR activity than isolated N-dopant, isolated P dopant.…”

“…[43] Other recent DFT calculations indicated that charge transfer induced by N and P doping effectively regulates the electronic properties of carbon near doping sites, which is beneficial to provide optimization and create new active sites. [23] The N and P doping Differential charge density distributions (between N-doped and undoped graphene) of (c) boron, (d) nitrogen, and (e) fluorine-doped graphene sheets. Reproduced with permission.…”

“…[19][20][21][22] Carbon nanomaterials, including 0D (e. g., fullerene), 1D (e. g., carbon nanotubes (CNTs)), 2D (e. g., graphene) and 3D porous carbon nanostructures, have been widely reported. [23][24] Defect engineering of carbons, such as the modification of the electronic structure and surface chemical state of the carbon skeleton, is an effective strategy to further improve their electrochemical performance. [25][26][27][28] To be specific, intrinsic carbon defects can be directly used as effective active sites.…”

“…And studies are mainly focused on the following aspects: 1) increasing the number of the exposed active sites; 2) improving mass transfer and reaction kinetics by optimizing the hierarchical porous structure; 3) designing robust electrocatalysts with high electrochemical stability [19–22] . Carbon nanomaterials, including 0D (e. g., fullerene), 1D (e. g., carbon nanotubes (CNTs)), 2D (e. g., graphene) and 3D porous carbon nanostructures, have been widely reported [23–24] . Defect engineering of carbons, such as the modification of the electronic structure and surface chemical state of the carbon skeleton, is an effective strategy to further improve their electrochemical performance [25–28] .…”