Synthesis of 2D Nitrogen-Doped Mesoporous Carbon Catalyst for Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Abstract

2D nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon (NMC) is synthesized by using a mesoporous silica film as hard template, which is then investigated as a non-precious metal catalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). The effect of the synthesis conditions on the silica template and carbon is extensively investigated. In this work, we employ dual templates—viz. graphene oxide and triblock copolymer F127—to control the textural features of a 2D silica film. The silica is then used as a template to direct the synthesis of a 2D nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon. The resultant nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon is characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), nitrogen ad/desorption isotherms, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), cyclic voltammetry (CV), and rotating disk electrode measurements (RDE). The electrochemical test reveals that the obtained 2D-film carbon catalyst yields a highly electrochemically active surface area and superior electrocatalytic activity for the ORR compared to the 3D-particle. The superior activity can be firstly attributed to the difference in the specific surface area of the two catalysts. More importantly, the 2D-film morphology makes more active sites accessible to the reactive species, resulting in a much higher utilization efficiency and consequently better activity. Finally, it is noted that all the carbon catalysts exhibit a higher ORR activity than a commercial Pt catalyst, and are promising for use in fuel cells.

Synthesis of highly dispersed Pt nanoparticles into carbon supports by fluidized bed reactor atomic layer deposition to boost PEMFC performance

“…The multipoint BET nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms for the two different carbon supports (Vulcan and Vinatech carbons) before and after deposition were obtained to systemically reveal the effect of the textural properties on the growth mechanism of the Pt NPs produced by FBR-ALD. The isotherms of all the samples showed type IV characteristics with an H3 hysteresis loop 42 (Fig. 1b), which was attributed to the presence of slit-like mesopores.…”

Advanced Materials in Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells

“…Research into catalysts based on formulations free of platinum group metals (PGMs) is gaining increasing interest within the scientific community due to the attractive possibility of substituting expensive precious metals with more economical, available, and green catalytic materials [ 9 ]. Yu et al reported the synthesis of nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon for the ORR [ 10 ]. Their investigation covers the effect of a set of synthesis conditions of interest, and how these influence the physico-chemical features of nitrogen-doped carbons, together with the evaluation of ORR activity in an alkaline environment using a rotating disk electrode.…”

A facile synthesis for nitrogen‐doped carbon catalyst with high activity of oxygen reduction reaction in acidic media

“…Wei et al reported a hierarchically tubular nitrogen‐doped carbon structure using Cu 2 O nanowires as sacrificial templates 27 . Yu et al employed a dual templates method, in which GO and triblock copolymer F127 were used to control the character of silica and the silica was then used as the second template to synthesize the catalyst 28 . Chen et al obtained a nitrogen‐doped CNT with a large specific surface area owing to the in situ MgO template method 22 .…”