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The exploration of high-efficiency, long-durability, and cost-effectiveness transition metal doped carbon materials to replace the commercial Pt/C in oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is greatly desirable for promoting the advancement of sustainable energy devices. Herein, the Fe3N and FeCo alloy decorated N-doped carbon hybrid material (denoted Fe3N-FeCo@NC) is prepared and applied as the ORR catalyst, which is derived from the two-step pyrolysis of an intriguing complex consisted of metal-coordinated porous polydopamine (PDA) nanospheres (i.e., Fe-PDA@Co) and melamine. The resulting Fe3N-FeCo@NC delivers outstanding ORR activity with an onset potential (Eon) of 1.05 V, a half-wave potential (E1/2) of 0.89 V, as well as excellent long-term stability and methanol resistance over Pt/C. Interestingly, the home-made Zn-air battery with Fe3N-FeCo@NC as the air-cathode demonstrates much higher open-circuit voltage (1.50 vs. 1.48 V), power density (141 vs. 113 mW·cm−2) and specific capacity (806.6 vs. 660.6 mAh·gZn−1) than those of Pt/C counterpart. Such a remarkable ORR activity of Fe3N-FeCo@NC may stem from the synergistic effect of Fe3N and FeCo active species, the large surface area, the hierarchical porous structure and the exceptional sphere/sheet hybridized architecture.


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Metal-coordinated porous polydopamine nanospheres derived Fe3N-FeCo encapsulated N-doped carbon as a highly efficient electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction

Show Author's information Fanjuan Guo1Mingyue Zhang2Shicheng Yi1Xuxin Li1Rong Xin1Mei Yang1Bei Liu1Hongbiao Chen1( )Huaming Li1Yijiang Liu1( )
College of Chemistry and Key Laboratory of Environmentally Friendly Chemistry and Application of Ministry of Education, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan 411105, China
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA

Abstract

The exploration of high-efficiency, long-durability, and cost-effectiveness transition metal doped carbon materials to replace the commercial Pt/C in oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is greatly desirable for promoting the advancement of sustainable energy devices. Herein, the Fe3N and FeCo alloy decorated N-doped carbon hybrid material (denoted Fe3N-FeCo@NC) is prepared and applied as the ORR catalyst, which is derived from the two-step pyrolysis of an intriguing complex consisted of metal-coordinated porous polydopamine (PDA) nanospheres (i.e., Fe-PDA@Co) and melamine. The resulting Fe3N-FeCo@NC delivers outstanding ORR activity with an onset potential (Eon) of 1.05 V, a half-wave potential (E1/2) of 0.89 V, as well as excellent long-term stability and methanol resistance over Pt/C. Interestingly, the home-made Zn-air battery with Fe3N-FeCo@NC as the air-cathode demonstrates much higher open-circuit voltage (1.50 vs. 1.48 V), power density (141 vs. 113 mW·cm−2) and specific capacity (806.6 vs. 660.6 mAh·gZn−1) than those of Pt/C counterpart. Such a remarkable ORR activity of Fe3N-FeCo@NC may stem from the synergistic effect of Fe3N and FeCo active species, the large surface area, the hierarchical porous structure and the exceptional sphere/sheet hybridized architecture.

Keywords: in-situ synthesis, porous polydopamine nanospheres, melamine, Fe3N-FeCo nanoparticles, oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalyst

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Publication history

Received: 23 July 2022
Revised: 11 August 2022
Accepted: 15 August 2022
Published: 09 October 2022
Issue date: December 2022

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© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Tsinghua University Press.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52173207), the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (Nos. 2022JJ30563 and 2020JJ5542), and the Outstanding Youth Fund Project of Hunan Provincial Department of Education (No. 21B0119).

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