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Controlled synthesis of porous spinel cobalt manganese oxides as efficient oxygen reduction reaction electrocatalysts

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Abstract

In this article, we report a facile precursor pyrolysis method to prepare porous spinel-type cobalt manganese oxides (Co x Mn3-x O4) with controllable morphologies and crystalline structures. The capping agent in the reaction was found to be crucial on the formation of the porous spinel cobalt manganese oxides from cubic Co2MnO4 nanorods to tetragonal Co2Mn4 microspheres and tetragonal Co2Mn4 cubes, respectively. All of the prepared spinel materials exhibit brilliant oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalysis along with high stability. In particular, the cubic Co2MnO4 nanorods show the best performance with an onset potential of 0.9 V and a half-wave potential of 0.72 V which are very close to the commercial Pt/C. Meanwhile, the cubic Co2MnO4 nanorods present superior stability with negligible degradation of their electrocatalytic activity after a continuous operation time of 10,000 seconds, which is much better than the commercial Pt/C electrocatalyst.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Shanghai University, 99 Shang-Da Road, Shanghai, 200444, China

    Hongchao Yang & Liyi Shi

  2. Key Laboratory of Nano-Bio Interface, Division of Nanobiomedicine and i-Lab, Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou, 215123, China

    Hongchao Yang, Feng Hu, Yejun Zhang & Qiangbin Wang

Authors
  1. Hongchao Yang
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  2. Feng Hu
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  3. Yejun Zhang
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  4. Liyi Shi
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  5. Qiangbin Wang
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Correspondence to Qiangbin Wang.

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These authors contributed equally to this work.

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Yang, H., Hu, F., Zhang, Y. et al. Controlled synthesis of porous spinel cobalt manganese oxides as efficient oxygen reduction reaction electrocatalysts. Nano Res. 9, 207–213 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-0982-4

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