Issue 9, 2016

A large-scale synthesis of heteroatom (N and S) co-doped hierarchically porous carbon (HPC) derived from polyquaternium for superior oxygen reduction reactivity

Abstract

A simple, large-scale and green synthetic route is demonstrated for the preparation of polyquaternium derived heteroatom (N and S) co-doped hierarchically porous carbon (HPC). Our protocol allows for the simultaneous optimization of both porous structures and surface functionalities of (N and S) co-doped carbon (N–S-HPC). As a result, the obtained N–S-HPC shows a superior catalytic ORR performance to the commercial Pt/C catalyst in alkaline media, including high catalytic activity, remarkable long-term stability and strong methanol tolerance. Even in acidic media where most non-precious metal catalysts suffer from high overpotential and low durability, our N–S-HPC exhibits an amazing ORR activity with a half-wave potential of 0.73 V, and 40% enhanced limited diffusion-current density when compared to the Pt/C catalyst. Particularly, when used for constructing a zinc–air battery cathode, such an N–S-HPC catalyst can give a discharge peak power density as high as 536 mW cm−2. At 1.0 V of cell voltage, a current density of 317 mA cm−2 is achieved. This performance is superior to all reported non-precious metal catalysts in the literature for zinc–air batteries and significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art platinum-based catalyst.

Graphical abstract: A large-scale synthesis of heteroatom (N and S) co-doped hierarchically porous carbon (HPC) derived from polyquaternium for superior oxygen reduction reactivity

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
03 Nov 2015
Accepted
05 Jan 2016
First published
05 Jan 2016

Green Chem., 2016,18, 2699-2709

Author version available

A large-scale synthesis of heteroatom (N and S) co-doped hierarchically porous carbon (HPC) derived from polyquaternium for superior oxygen reduction reactivity

M. Wu, J. Qiao, K. Li, X. Zhou, Y. Liu and J. Zhang, Green Chem., 2016, 18, 2699 DOI: 10.1039/C5GC02625C

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements