Amorphous Fe Nanoclusters Embedded inside Balloon-Like N-Doped Hollow Carbon for Efficient Electrocatalytic Oxygen Reduction |
| |
Authors: | Ling-yun Liu Yue Li Zhen-fa Zi Ren-wen Li Ying Meng Yao-dong Wu Xin Wei Yuan Ma |
| |
Institution: | Key Laboratory for Photoelectric Detection Science and Technology of Education Department of Anhui Province, and School of Physics and Materials Engineering, Hefei Normal University, Hefei 230601, China |
| |
Abstract: | Rational designs of electrocatalytic active sites and architectures are of great importance to develop cost-efficient non-noble metal electrocatalysts towards efficient oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) for high-performance energy conversion and storage devices. In this work, active amorphous Fe-based nanoclusters (Fe NC) are elaborately embedded at the inner surface of balloon-like N-doped hollow carbon (Fe NC/Ch sphere) as an efficient ORR electrocatalyst with an ultrathin wall of about 10 nm. When evaluated for electrochemical performance, Fe NC/Ch sphere exhibits decent ORR activity with a diffusion-limited current density of ~5.0 mA/cm2 and a half-wave potential of ~0.81 V in alkaline solution, which is comparable with commercial Pt/C and superior to Fe nanoparticles supported on carbon sheet (Fe NP/C sheet) counterpart. The electrochemical analyses combined with electronic structure characterizations reveal that robust Fe-N interactions in amorphous Fe nanoclusters are helpful for the adsorption of surface oxygen-relative species, and the strong support effect of N-doped hollow carbon is benefitial for accelerating the interfacial electron transfer, which jointly contributes to improve ORR kinetics for Fe NC/Ch sphere. |
| |
Keywords: | Fe nanocluster Oxygen reduction reaction Hollow carbon sphere Electrocatalyst |
|
| 点击此处可从《化学物理学报(中文版)》浏览原始摘要信息 |
| 点击此处可从《化学物理学报(中文版)》下载免费的PDF全文 |