3D Porous Fe/N/C Spherical Nanostructures As High-Performance Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Reduction in Both Alkaline and Acidic Media

Exploring inexpensive and high-performance nonprecious metal catalysts (NPMCs) to replace the rare and expensive Pt-based catalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is crucial for future low-temperature fuel cell devices. Herein, we developed a new type of highly efficient 3D porous Fe/N/C electrocatalyst through a simple pyrolysis approach. Our systematic study revealed that the pyrolysis temperature, the surface area, and the Fe content in the catalysts largely affect the ORR performance of the Fe/N/C catalysts, and the optimized parameters have been identified. The optimized Fe/N/C catalyst, with an interconnected hollow and open structure, exhibits one of the highest ORR activity, stability and selectivity in both alkaline and acidic conditions. In 0.1 M KOH, compared to the commercial Pt/C catalyst, the 3D porous Fe/N/C catalyst exhibits ∼6 times better activity (e.g., 1.91 mA cm for Fe/N/C vs 0.32 mA cm for Pt/C, at 0.9 V) and excellent stability (e.g., no any decay for Fe/N/C vs 35 mV negative half-wave potential shift for Pt/C, after 10000 cycles test). In 0.5 M HSO, this catalyst also exhibits comparable activity and better stability comparing to Pt/C catalyst. More importantly, in both alkaline and acidic media (RRDE environment), the as-synthesized Fe/N/C catalyst shows much better stability and methanol tolerance than those of the state-of-the-art commercial Pt/C catalyst. All these make the 3D porous Fe/N/C nanostructure an excellent candidate for non-precious-metal ORR catalyst in metal-air batteries and fuel cells.