Biomass-derived N-doped porous carbon supported single Fe atoms as low-cost and high-performance electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction

Abstract

Single-atom catalysts (SACs) are promising for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) on account of their excellent catalytic activity and maximum utilization of atoms. However, due to the complicated preparation processes and expensive reagents used, the cost of SACs is usually too high to put into practical application. The development of cost-effective and sustainable SACs remains a great challenge. Herein, a low-cost method employing biomass is designed to prepare efficient single-atom Fe-N-C catalysts (SA-Fe-N-C). Benefiting from the confinement effect of porous carbon support and the coordination effect of glucose, SA-Fe-N-C is derived from cheap flour by the two-step pyrolysis. Atomically dispersed Fe atoms exist in the form of Fe—N_x, which acts as active sites for ORR. The catalyst shows outstanding activity with a half-wave potential (E_1/2) of 0.86 V, which is better than that of Pt/C (0.84 V). Additionally, the catalyst also exhibits superior stability. The ORR catalyzed by SA-Fe-N-C proceeds via an efficient 4e transfer pathway. The high performance of SA-Fe-N-C also benefits from its porous structure, extremely high specific surface area (1450.1 m²/g), and abundant micropores, which are conducive to increasing the density of active sites and fully exposing them. This work provides a cost-effective strategy to synthesize SACs from cheap biomass, achieving a balance between performance and cost.

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