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Journal of Advanced Ceramics 2021, 10(4): 714-728 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40145-021-0466-1
Research Article | Open Access | Issue | Published: 05 August 2021

Efficient oxygen reduction reaction by a highly porous, nitrogen-doped carbon sphere electrocatalyst through space confinement effect in nanopores

Show Author's Information Zheyang MOa,b,†,  Weiyi YANGc,†,  Shuang GAOc,  Jian Ku SHANGb,  Yajun DINGa,b,  Wuzhu SUNd,  Qi LIc( )
School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Shenyang 110016, China
Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China
Key Laboratory of Advanced Technologies of Materials (Ministry of Education), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255000, China

† Zheyang Mo and Weiyi Yang contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), precious-metal-free electrocatalyst, biomass resource, space confinement effect, 2e+2e pathway
Cite this article:
MO Z, YANG W, GAO S, et al. Efficient oxygen reduction reaction by a highly porous, nitrogen-doped carbon sphere electrocatalyst through space confinement effect in nanopores. Journal of Advanced Ceramics, 2021, 10(4): 714-728. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40145-021-0466-1
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

A highly porous nitrogen-doped carbon sphere (NPC) electrocatalyst was prepared through the carbonization of biomass carbon spheres mixed with urea and zinc chloride in N2 atmosphere. The sample carbonized at 1000 ℃ demonstrates a superior oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) performance over the Pt/C electrocatalyst, while its contents of pyridinic nitrogen and graphitic nitrogen are the lowest among samples synthesized at the same or lower carbonization temperatures. This unusual result is explained by a space confinement effect from the microporous and mesoporous structures in the microflakes, which induces the further reduction of peroxide ions or other oxygen species produced in the first step reduction to water to have the preferred overall four electron reduction ORR process. This work demonstrates that in addition to the amount or species of its active sites, the space confinement can be a new approach to enhance the ORR performance of precious-metal-free, nitrogen-doped carbon electrocatalysts.


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About this article

Efficient oxygen reduction reaction by a highly porous, nitrogen-doped carbon sphere electrocatalyst through space confinement effect in nanopores

Show Author's information Zheyang MOa,b,†, Weiyi YANGc,†, Shuang GAOc, Jian Ku SHANGb, Yajun DINGa,b, Wuzhu SUNd, Qi LIc( )
School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Shenyang 110016, China
Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China
Key Laboratory of Advanced Technologies of Materials (Ministry of Education), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255000, China

† Zheyang Mo and Weiyi Yang contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

A highly porous nitrogen-doped carbon sphere (NPC) electrocatalyst was prepared through the carbonization of biomass carbon spheres mixed with urea and zinc chloride in N2 atmosphere. The sample carbonized at 1000 ℃ demonstrates a superior oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) performance over the Pt/C electrocatalyst, while its contents of pyridinic nitrogen and graphitic nitrogen are the lowest among samples synthesized at the same or lower carbonization temperatures. This unusual result is explained by a space confinement effect from the microporous and mesoporous structures in the microflakes, which induces the further reduction of peroxide ions or other oxygen species produced in the first step reduction to water to have the preferred overall four electron reduction ORR process. This work demonstrates that in addition to the amount or species of its active sites, the space confinement can be a new approach to enhance the ORR performance of precious-metal-free, nitrogen-doped carbon electrocatalysts.

Keywords: oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), precious-metal-free electrocatalyst, biomass resource, space confinement effect, 2e+2e pathway

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Publication history

Received: 24 October 2020
Revised: 29 January 2021
Accepted: 13 February 2021
Published: 05 August 2021
Issue date: August 2021

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© The Author(s) 2021

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51672283 and 51902271), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant Nos. A1920502051907-15, 2682020CX07, and 2682020CX08), Sichuan Science and Technology Program (Grant Nos. 2020YJ0259 and 2020YJ0072), Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. ZR2019MEM045), Joint Fund between Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science and State Key Laboratory of Advanced Processing and Recycling of Nonferrous Metals (Grant No. 18LHPY009), and Liaoning Baiqianwan Talents Program.

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