Promoting the 4-electron oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) with low overpotential on cheap catalysts is a long-standing scientific challenge in fuel cells and metal-air batteries. Extensive work has been carried out in the preparation of doped carbon as a new generation of ORR catalyst to replace Pt. However, structural uncertainties and intensive debate still exist over the mechanism, and these circumstances block the knowledge-based design of ORR catalyst. Our recent work demonstrated that N-doped carbon from imidazolium-based ionic liquids as efficient metal-free ORR catalysts. Systematic studies with the combination of computation, electrochemistry, and in-situ surface spectroscopy indicate that the ORR undergoes different mechanisms in acidic and basic electrolyte. In addition, the results show the ORR kinetics on N-doped carbon are  dependent on the pore morphology in terms of sizes and distributions, an issue which has not been previously addressed . This work is of fundamentally significance as a guide for the future rational design of ORR catalysts.This work was supported as part of the FIRST Center, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences.

Mechanistic understanding of oxygen reduction reaction on nitrogen-doped carbon

247th National Meeting (2014)

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