Recent Advances in Heteroatom-Doped Graphene Materials as Efficient Electrocatalysts towards the Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Abstract

The development of cost-effective, efficient and stable electrocatalysts towards oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) has been an aim to overcome the bottleneck of widespread application of fuel cells and rechargeable metal-air batteries. Unique physicochemical properties of heteroatom-doped graphene open up a brand-new avenue for design and application of metal-free electrocatalysts in these electrochemical devices. Given the flourishing research of graphene and electrochemical energy storage, we critically summarize recent progress in the design, synthesis and application of various heteroatom (N, S, P, B, etc)-doped graphene materials as the electrocatalysts towards ORR. The distinctive properties resulting from various dopants and the resultant electrocatalytic activity are highlighted to gain insights into the mechanism of heteroatom-doped graphene for ORR. We conclude this article with some future trends and opportunities of developing heteroatom-doped-graphene-based electrocatalysts in the application of the ORR-related devices.

Advances and Trends in Chemically Doped Graphene

“…To exploit the potential of graphene doping to the maximum, it is critical to understand the different attributes of doped graphene in detail, such as the topography, morphology, quality, number of layers, and the doping system (such as doping chemical state, doping level, and distribution), because these characteristics strongly impact the material's properties. [41,69,74] Thus, various spectroscopic and microscopic techniques have been used to comprehensively examine the chemical derivatives of graphene, and some of them are reviewed below.…”

Sulfur doped graphene as a promising metal-free electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction: a DFT-D study

“…3 Given the high cost, low abundance and poor durability of the Pt-based catalysts in FCs, non-precious metals cathodes or metal-free carbon-based cathodes have sparked worldwide interest in very recent years owing to their low cost, environmental friendliness, outstanding activity and stability. [4][5][6][7][8][9] The cheap and stable graphene-based materials doped with heteroatoms, 10 such as nitrogen, 11,12 phosphorus, 13,14 and their mixtures, [15][16][17] present high catalytic activity and selectivity for ORR. The detailed kinetic behaviors and mechanisms of the entire ORR process on the modied graphene, such as phosphorus doped graphene, 18,19 nitrogen doped graphene, 20,21 boron doped graphene, 22 MnN 4 embedded graphene, 23 and FeN 4 embedded graphene, 24,25 have been revealed successfully through density functional theory (DFT) calculations.…”

Recent advances in metal-free heteroatom-doped carbon heterogonous catalysts

“…Commonly, there are four types of doped nitrogen atoms in a carbon matrix, 148,149 including graphitic N, pyridinic N, pyrrolic N, and pyridinic N-oxide (Fig. 2a) that can be identied using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).…”