Fe/N-doped hollow porous carbon spheres for oxygen reduction reaction

Abstract

Herein, we design a dual-template-assisted pyrolysis method to prepare ultra-small Fe3O4 nanoparticles anchored on Fe/N-doped hollow porous carbon spheres (0.010-Fe/NHPCS-800) for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). The synthesized SiO2 nanospheres, which are selected as the hard template, contribute to forming macroporous structure. Pluronic ® F127 is employed to fabricate mesopores through high-temperature pyrolysis as a soft template. In this way, the 0.010-Fe/NHPCS-800 architecture represents an ordered hierarchically porous property with a large BET surface area (1812 m2 g−1), which can facilitate the mass transport of reactants and increase the electrochemically active area. The Fe3O4 nanoparticles wrapped by graphitic carbon layers provide more active sites, and the synergistic interaction between Fe3O4 nanoparticles and doping N has a positive effect on ORR performance. The 0.010-Fe/NHPCS-800 catalyst outperforms the most effective ORR activities among a series of Fe/NHPCS samples with onset potential of 0.95 V (versus reversible hydrogen potential) and half-wave potential of 0.81 V, which is almost the same as the commercial Pt/C (0.96 and 0.81 V, correspondingly) in 0.10 M KOH. However, both the stability and durability of 0.010-Fe/NHPCS-800 surpass those of commercial Pt/C. Given all these advantages, 0.010-Fe/NHPCS-800 is a promising candidate to take the place of Pt-based electrocatalysts for ORR in the future.