Issue 3, 2017

Texturing in situ: N,S-enriched hierarchically porous carbon as a highly active reversible oxygen electrocatalyst

Abstract

Facile yet rational design of an efficient reversible oxygen electrocatalyst is critical for many renewable energy conversion and storage technologies. Here we report a simple and general synthetic protocol for fabricating a hierarchically porous and heteroatom doped carbon catalyst, which exhibited outstanding oxygen reduction/evolution activities (with a metric potential difference of 0.72 V in 1 M KOH, the best value for metal-free catalysts reported to date) with good stability in different electrolytes. The excellent performances of the catalyst were primarily endowed by our synthetic protocol, which integrates good conductivity, abundant accessible dopant species and suitable porous architectures within an in situ pyrolysis reaction. As a result, the performances of rechargeable Zn–air batteries based on the optimized catalyst substantially outperform those afforded by a benchmark Pt/C catalyzer. Our work is expected to open up new avenues for developing other efficient catalysts in a facile and viable way.

Graphical abstract: Texturing in situ: N,S-enriched hierarchically porous carbon as a highly active reversible oxygen electrocatalyst

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
08 Nov 2016
Accepted
21 Dec 2016
First published
03 Jan 2017

Energy Environ. Sci., 2017,10, 742-749

Texturing in situ: N,S-enriched hierarchically porous carbon as a highly active reversible oxygen electrocatalyst

Z. Pei, H. Li, Y. Huang, Q. Xue, Y. Huang, M. Zhu, Z. Wang and C. Zhi, Energy Environ. Sci., 2017, 10, 742 DOI: 10.1039/C6EE03265F

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