Highly efficient iron phthalocyanine based porous carbon electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction

Abstract

Porous carbon (PC) materials with a large surface area and uniform pore sizes have been used as novel electrocatalysts to catalyze the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). In this work, iron phthalocyanine (FePc) and magnesium oxide (MgO) were used as the precursors and hard-template, respectively, to fabricate FePc-based porous carbon non-noble metal electrocatalysts (NNMEs). The prepared FePc-based porous carbon electrocatalysts possess a high surface area of 555 m² g⁻¹ and a dual mesoporous structure with mean pore sizes of 3.6 nm and 32 nm, and display comparable ORR activity but superior durability than a commercial Pt/C electrocatalyst in alkaline solution. The excellent catalytic performance of FePc-based porous carbon electrocatalysts may be attributed to the large surface area, high density of iron based nano-particles (NPs) encapsulated in carbon layers and high content of doped nitrogen species.