N-doped-carbon-coated Fe3O4 from metal-organic framework as efficient electrocatalyst for ORR

Nowadays, the hybrids of non-noble metal and heteroatom-doped carbon, especially, transition-metal-nitrogen-carbon materials, have been extensively studied as promising next-generation oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalysts in energy conversion. However, the pyrolysis of normal metal/nitrogen/car...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Nano energy Vol. 40; pp. 462 - 470
Main Authors:	Gao, Shuyan, Fan, Baofa, Feng, Rui, Ye, Cunling, Wei, Xianjun, Liu, Jian, Bu, Xianhe
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Elsevier Ltd 01-10-2017
Subjects:	Conductive polymers Electrocatalysts Fuel cells Metal organic frameworks Oxygen reduction reaction Conductive polymers Metal organic frameworks Electrocatalysts Oxygen reduction reaction Fuel cells
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Nowadays, the hybrids of non-noble metal and heteroatom-doped carbon, especially, transition-metal-nitrogen-carbon materials, have been extensively studied as promising next-generation oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalysts in energy conversion. However, the pyrolysis of normal metal/nitrogen/carbon-containing precursors usually generates uncontrollable agglomeration or inhomogeneous microstructure, hence leading to insufficient exposure of the active sites and poor mass transport. In this work, a new strategy for fabricating N-doped-carbon-coated Fe3O4 (denoted as NC@Fe3O4) is proposed by the pyrolysis of polyaniline (PANI)-coated Fe-based metal organic frameworks (MIL-101-Fe). The optimal catalyst exhibits a very positive ORR onset potential close to that of Pt/C, quasi-four-electron-transfer pathway and high long-term cycle stability in alkaline media. This work demonstrates the crucial role of thin PANI film (a highly conductive skeleton and heteroatoms sources) together with MOFs to rationalize the superior ORR performance for the resulting NC@Fe3O4. The generality of the conductive-polymer-layer-assisted synthetic strategy is expected to further boost the electrocatalytic activity of universal non-noble-metal hybrid electrocatalyst for practical fuel-cell applications. [Display omitted] •A new kind of N-doped-carbon-coated Fe3O4 (denoted as NC@Fe3O4) ORR electrocatalyst is successfully prepared.•The NC@Fe3O4-900-1.5 shows remarkable electrocatalytic ORR performance.•The in-situ carbon coating can block the aggregation of the iron-based particles.•This boosts the non-noble-metal hybrid ORR electrocatalysts derived from MOFs.
ISSN:	2211-2855
DOI:	10.1016/j.nanoen.2017.08.044