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Nano Research 2022, 15(9): 7968-7975 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4499-8
Research Article | Issue | Published: 02 June 2022

Silver based single atom catalyst with heteroatom coordination environment as high performance oxygen reduction reaction catalyst

Show Author's Information Rui Sui1,  Xuejiang Zhang1,  Xingdong Wang1,  Xinyu Wang2,  Jiajing Pei1,  Yufeng Zhang1,  Xuerui Liu1,  Wenxing Chen3,  Wei Zhu1( ),  Zhongbin Zhuang1,4( )
State Key Lab of Organic-Inorganic Composites and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
International Clean Energy Research Office, China Three Gorges Corporation, Beijing 100038, China
Beijing Key Laboratory of Construction Tailorable Advanced Functional Materials and Green Applications, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
Beijing Key Laboratory of Energy Environmental Catalysis, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
Keywords:
Ag, oxygen reduction, zinc-air battery, single-atom, heteroatom coordination
Topics:
Electrocatalysts
Cite this article:
Sui R, Zhang X, Wang X, et al. Silver based single atom catalyst with heteroatom coordination environment as high performance oxygen reduction reaction catalyst. Nano Research, 2022, 15(9): 7968-7975. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4499-8
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Ag is a potential low-cost oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalyst in alkaline condition, which is important for the zinc-air batteries. Here, we report that an Ag based single atom catalyst with heteroatom coordination. Ag1-h-NPClSC, has been synthesized and shown much improved performance towards ORR by manipulating the coordination environment of the Ag center. It shows a high half wave potential (0.896 V) and a high turnover frequency (TOF) (5.9 s−1) at 0.85 V, which are higher than the previously reported Ag based catalysts and commercial Pt/C. A zinc-air battery with high peak power density of 270 mW·cm−2 is fabricated by using the Ag1-h-NPClSC as air electrode. The high performance is attributed to (1) the hollow structure providing good mass transfer; (2) the single atom metal center structure providing high utility of the Ag; (3) heteroatom coordination environment providing the adjusted binding to the ORR intermediates. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations show that the energy barrier for the formation of OOH*, which is considered as the rate determine step for ORR on Ag nanoparticles, is lowered on Ag1-h-NPClSC, thus improving the ORR activity. This work demonstrates that the well manipulated Ag based single atom catalysts are promising in electrocatalysis.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Silver based single atom catalyst with heteroatom coordination environment as high performance oxygen reduction reaction catalyst

Show Author's information Rui Sui1, Xuejiang Zhang1, Xingdong Wang1, Xinyu Wang2, Jiajing Pei1, Yufeng Zhang1, Xuerui Liu1, Wenxing Chen3, Wei Zhu1( ), Zhongbin Zhuang1,4( )
State Key Lab of Organic-Inorganic Composites and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
International Clean Energy Research Office, China Three Gorges Corporation, Beijing 100038, China
Beijing Key Laboratory of Construction Tailorable Advanced Functional Materials and Green Applications, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
Beijing Key Laboratory of Energy Environmental Catalysis, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China

Abstract

Ag is a potential low-cost oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalyst in alkaline condition, which is important for the zinc-air batteries. Here, we report that an Ag based single atom catalyst with heteroatom coordination. Ag1-h-NPClSC, has been synthesized and shown much improved performance towards ORR by manipulating the coordination environment of the Ag center. It shows a high half wave potential (0.896 V) and a high turnover frequency (TOF) (5.9 s−1) at 0.85 V, which are higher than the previously reported Ag based catalysts and commercial Pt/C. A zinc-air battery with high peak power density of 270 mW·cm−2 is fabricated by using the Ag1-h-NPClSC as air electrode. The high performance is attributed to (1) the hollow structure providing good mass transfer; (2) the single atom metal center structure providing high utility of the Ag; (3) heteroatom coordination environment providing the adjusted binding to the ORR intermediates. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations show that the energy barrier for the formation of OOH*, which is considered as the rate determine step for ORR on Ag nanoparticles, is lowered on Ag1-h-NPClSC, thus improving the ORR activity. This work demonstrates that the well manipulated Ag based single atom catalysts are promising in electrocatalysis.

Keywords: Ag, oxygen reduction, zinc-air battery, single-atom, heteroatom coordination

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 05 April 2022
Revised: 30 April 2022
Accepted: 03 May 2022
Published: 02 June 2022
Issue date: September 2022

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2022

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2019YFA0210300), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21971008), and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Nos. buctrc201916 and buctrc201823).

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