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Sponge-like carbon containing nitrogen and iron provides a non-precious oxygen reduction catalyst

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Abstract

Sponge-like nitrogen-containing carbon (SNC) was synthesized via a template-free approach through pyrolyzing a mixture of bipyridine and iron (III) chloride. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that the prepared SNC comprised an interconnected highly porous three-dimensional framework. Using rotating disk electrode measurements to measure oxygen reduction activity and methanol tolerance, SNC was found to have a 22.2 mV more negative half-wave potential than that of commercial Pt/C and strong methanol tolerance. We conclude that SNC affords a promising “non-precious” oxygen reduction catalyst in alkaline medium.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51362027, 21363022, and 21163018) for financially supporting this work.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, 730070, China

    Hui Wang, Wei Wang, Yuanyuan Ma & Rongfang Wang

  2. South African Institute for Advanced Materials Chemistry, University of the Western Cape, Private Bag X17, Bellville, 7535, Cape Town, South Africa

    Julian Key, Shan Ji & Lindiwe Khotseng

  3. College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China

    Weizhong Lv

Authors
  1. Hui Wang
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  2. Wei Wang
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  3. Julian Key
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  4. Shan Ji
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  7. Weizhong Lv
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Shan Ji or Rongfang Wang.

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Wang, H., Wang, W., Key, J. et al. Sponge-like carbon containing nitrogen and iron provides a non-precious oxygen reduction catalyst. J Solid State Electrochem 19, 1181–1186 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-014-2719-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-014-2719-1

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