Carbonization of self-assembled nanoporous hemin with a significantly enhanced activity for the oxygen reduction reaction

Abstract

The scarcity and high cost of Pt-based electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) hinder the practical application of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). It is critical to replace platinum with non-noble metal electrocatalysts (NNMEs). Carbonized metalloporphyrins represent an important class of NNMEs, but most metalloporphyrins are costly and the corresponding NNMEs do not possess a high ORR activity. Herein, we report that the self-assembly of inexpensive hemin leads to porous nanomaterials in water under ambient conditions and subsequent heat-treatment of the unprecedented nanoporous hemin results in a magnetic NNME with a much enhanced ORR activity compared with directly carbonized hemin without self-assembly. The improvement of the ORR activity likely originates from the exposure of more ORR active sites, caused by the surface area increase of the nanoporous hemin after carbonization over that of micro-scale pristine hemin crystals. Moreover, the ORR activity of heat-treated nanoporous hemin is actually comparable to that of commercial Pt/C in alkaline solution. Additionally, the carbonized nanoporous hemin is much better than commercial Pt/C in terms of durability and tolerance to methanol. This study opens up a new avenue to the production of inexpensive metalloporphyrin-based NNMEs with a high ORR performance by using a self-assembly method in combination with traditional pyrolysis.