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Title: Porous Carbon-Hosted Atomically Dispersed Iron-Nitrogen Moiety as Enhanced Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Reduction Reaction in a Wide Range of pH

Journal Article · · Small
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [1];  [4];  [1];  [5];  [2]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Washington State University, WA 99164 USA
  2. School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Washington State University, WA 99164 USA; Key Laboratory of Pesticide and Chemical Biology, Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079 P. R. China
  3. Center for Functional Nanomaterials, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton NY 11973 USA
  4. Chemistry Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton NY 11973 USA
  5. Environmental Molecular Science Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland WA 99354 USA

As one of the alternatives to replace precious metal catalysts, transition-metal–nitrogen–carbon (M–N–C) electrocatalysts have attracted great research interest due to their low cost and good catalytic activities. Despite nanostructured M–N–C catalysts can achieve good electrochemical perfor-mances, they are vulnerable to aggregation and insufficient catalytic sites upon continuous catalytic reaction. In this work, metal–organic frameworks derived porous single-atom electrocatalysts (SAEs) were successfully prepared by simple pyrolysis procedure without any further posttreatment. Combining the X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy and electrochemical measure-ments, the SAEs have been identified with superior oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity and stability compared with Pt/C catalysts in alkaline condition. More impressively, the SAEs also show excellent ORR electrocatalytic perfor-mance in both acid and neutral media. This study of nonprecious catalysts provides new insights on nanoengineering catalytically active sites and porous structures for nonprecious metal ORR catalysis in a wide range of pH.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States). Environmental Molecular Sciences Lab. (EMSL)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1439660
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-133964; 48920; KP1704020
Journal Information:
Small, Vol. 14, Issue 12; ISSN 1613-6810
Publisher:
Wiley
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Sulfuration of an Fe-N-C Catalyst Containing Fe x C/Fe Species to Enhance the Catalysis of Oxygen Reduction in Acidic Media and for Use in Flexible Zn-Air Batteries journal October 2018
Hierarchically Porous M-N-C (M = Co and Fe) Single-Atom Electrocatalysts with Robust MN x Active Moieties Enable Enhanced ORR Performance journal August 2018
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