The Oxygen Reduction Electrocatalytic Activity of Cobalt and Nitrogen Co-doped Carbon Nanocatalyst Synthesized by a Flat Template

Abstract

The design of noble-metal-free catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is very important to the commercialization of fuel cells. Here, we use a Co-modified montmorillonite (Co-MMT) as a flat template to prepare Co- and N-doped nanocarbon ORR catalysts derived from carbonization of polyaniline at controlled temperatures. The use of flat template can hinder the agglomeration of polyaniline during pyrolysis process and optimize the N-rich active site density on the surface. The addition of transition metal Co in the flat MMT template can largely promote the formation of Co–N sites in prepared catalyst, facilitating the effective improvement of catalytic activity towards the ORR with a direct four-electron transfer pathway. The excellent ORR activity may be mainly attributed to high contents of graphitic N, pyridinic-N, and Co-N configurations. This study opens a new way to rationally design cheap and active ORR catalysts by using simple flat compound as a direct template.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s11671-016-1804-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Spray pyrolysis‐assisted synthesis of hollow cobalt nitrogen‐doped carbon catalyst for the performance enhancement of membraneless fuel cells

“…This confirms again that the CoN bond is dominantly occupied in H‐CoNC. This result was also well matched with the previous studies 45 . The Co‐porphyrin bond denoted as CoN 4 induced a low onset potential for HPOR, based on which, it is anticipated that the electrochemical behaviors of CoNC‐NPs and H‐CoNC will be different 34 .…”

“…This result was also well matched with the previous studies. 45 The Co-porphyrin bond denoted as Co N 4 induced a low onset potential for HPOR, based on which, it is anticipated that the electrochemical behaviors of CoNC-NPs and H-CoNC will be different. 34 Taken together, with the above chemical and structural characterizations, H-CoNC has pros and cons.…”

Effect of porous structure on doping and the catalytic performance of carbon xerogels towards the oxygen reduction reaction

“…On the other hand, the replacement of platinum by non-noble metals has received much attention in the last years due to the higher activity and long-term stability in comparison with metal-free carbons [13,15,21,24]. Cobalt and iron have shown to improve the electroactivity of carbon materials towards ORR, especially when the metals are coordinated to nitrogen [2,6,15,21,25].…”

Fabrication of Porous CoOx/mC@MoS2 Composite Loaded on g-C3N4 Nanosheets as a Highly Efficient Dual Electrocatalyst for Oxygen Reduction and Hydrogen Evolution Reactions

“…The high-resolution XPS spectra of each element of the resultant CoO x /mC@MoS 2 after the calcination of the ZIF-67@MoS 2 composite are shown in Figures c and S7. In addition to the peaks in the Co 2p XPS spectrum of the CoO x /mC composite, an additional peak at 782.0 eV, which is ascribed to the Co–N x group, is fitted out . These results show that the simulated peaks in the C 1s and O 1s XPS spectra of CoO x /mC@MoS 2 are consistent with those of the CoO x /mC, whereas the Mo 3d is the same as that of the MoS 2 nanosheets.…”