• 文献标题:   Nitrogen-doped graphene-wrapped iron nanofragments for high-performance oxygen reduction electrocatalysts
  • 文献类型:   Article
  • 作  者:   LEE JY, KIM NY, SHIN DY, PARK HY, LEE SS, KWON SJ, LIM DH, BONG KW, SON JG, KIM JY
  • 作者关键词:   oxygen reduction reaction, nonprecious metal electrocatalyst, graphene, doping, catalyst nanomaterial
  • 出版物名称:   JOURNAL OF NANOPARTICLE RESEARCH
  • ISSN:   1388-0764 EI 1572-896X
  • 通讯作者地址:   Korea Inst Sci Technol
  • 被引频次:   6
  • DOI:   10.1007/s11051-017-3793-y
  • 出版年:   2017

▎ 摘  要

Transition metals, such as iron (Fe)- or cobalt (Co)-based nanomaterials, are promising electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reactions (ORR) in fuel cells due to their high theoretical activity and low cost. However, a major challenge to using these metals in place of precious metal catalysts for ORR is their low efficiency and poor stability, thus new concepts and strategies should be needed to address this issue. Here, we report a hybrid aciniform nanostructures of Fe nanofragments embedded in thin nitrogen (N)-doped graphene (Fe@N-G) layers via a heat treatment of graphene oxide-wrapped iron oxide (Fe2O3) microparticles with melamine. The heat treatment leads to transformation of Fe2O3 microparticles to nanosized zero-valent Fe fragments and formation of core-shell structures of Fe nanofragments and N-doped graphene layers. Thin N-doped graphene layers massively promote electron transfer from the encapsulated metals to the graphene surface, which efficiently optimizes the electronic structure of the graphene surface and thereby triggers ORR activity at the graphene surface. With the synergistic effect arising from the N-doped graphene and Fe nanoparticles with porous aciniform nanostructures, the Fe@N-G hybrid catalyst exhibits high catalytic activity, which was evidenced by high E-1/2 of 0.82 V, onset potential of 0.93 V, and limiting current density of 4.8 mA cm(-2) indicating 4-electron ORR, and even exceeds the catalytic stability of the commercial Pt catalyst.