Heteroatom-doped carbon materials from bimetal covalent organic polymers as efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts in oxygen reduction and oxygen evolution reactions

Abstract

Covalent organic polymers (COPs) are of great consequence for the research of multifunctional electrocatalysts as a novel porous material with controllable construction and high thermal stability. Herein, we prepared a metal Fe/Co phthalocyanine covalent organic polymers (COPs)/carbon nanotube-based heteroatom-doped carbon electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The obtained CoFe–COP/CNT-700 catalyst was prepared with significant specific surface area and structural flaws were present in the final CoFe–COP/CNT-700 catalyst, and the congenerous interaction of Co and Fe elements improved ORR and OER activities. The CoFe–COP/CNT-700 catalyst appeared good catalytic performance than Pt/C–IrO2 in 0.1 M KOH solution. For ORR, the catalyst has a half-wave potential of 0.847 V with the ultimate current density of 5.60 mA/cm2. For OER, the catalyst displays a low potential of 1.67 V at 10 mA/cm2. Besides, within the application of zinc-air batteries, the CoFe–COP/CNT-700 catalyst manifestations a power density of 117 mW/cm2 with enhanced stability. The creation of effective bifunctional electrocatalysts for zinc-air batteries would greatly benefit from the findings of this work.