title: Hierarchically porous Fe-N-C derived from covalent-organic materials as a highly efficient electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction.
abstract: Developing high-performance non-precious catalysts to replace platinum as oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalysts is still a big scientific and technological challenge. Herein, we report a simple method for the synthesis of a FeNC catalyst with a 3D hierarchically micro/meso/macro porous network and high surface area through a simple carbonization method by taking the advantages of a high specific surface area and diverse pore dimensions in 3D porous covalent-organic material. The resulting FeNC-900 electrocatalyst with improved reactant/electrolyte transport and sufficient active site exposure, exhibits outstanding ORR activity with a half-wave potential of 0.878 V, ca. 40 mV more positive than Pt/C for ORR in alkaline solution, and a half-wave potential of 0.72 V, which is comparable to that of Pt/C in acidic solution. In particular, the resulting FeNC-900 exhibits a much higher stability and methanol tolerance than those of Pt/C, which makes it among the best non-precious catalysts ever reported for ORR.
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei 430072, P. R. China. wluo@whu.edu.cn gzcheng@whu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Quan
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zuo
authors.forename: Pingping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Gongzhen
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cheng