Abstract
Even though Fe-N/C electrocatalysts with abundant Fe-Nx active sites have been developed as one of the most promising alternatives to precious metal materials for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), further improvement of their performance requires precise control over Fe-Nx sites at the molecular level and deep understanding of the catalytic mechanism associated with each particular structure. Herein, we report a host–guest chemistry strategy to construct Fe-mIm nanocluster (NC) (guest)@zeolite imidazole framework-8 (ZIF-8) (host) precursors that can be transformed into Fe-N/C electrocatalysts with controllable structures. The ZIF-8 host network exhibits a significant host–guest relationship dependent confinement effect for the Fe-mIm NCs during the pyrolysis process, resulting in different types of Fe-Nx sites with two- to five-coordinated configurations on the porous carbon matrix confirmed by X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) and Fourier transform (FT) extended X-ray absorption fine structure ...
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