Nitrogen doped carbon materials embedded with atomically dispersed metal sites have recently emerged as advanced electrocatalysts. The synthesis of such materials is generally based on high temperature pyrolysis method, which easily causes aggregation of metal species at high loading. Further, the distribution of metal sites in these catalysts and its effect on the catalytic performance remain little explored.<br/> <br/>Herein, we present a facile method to synthesize atomically dispersed metal electrocatalysts by employing metal phthalocyanine (MePc) derivatives as metal precursors. MePc molecules are encapsulated in the zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) and the subsequent pyrolysis yields the Me-N-C catalysts, allowing high metal loading with prevalent presence of single metal sites. These MePc derived catalysts, especially after the control of active site distribution, exhibit excellent catalytic performance in oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO2RR). Our study demonstates that metal phthalocyanines are efficient precursors to construct atomically dispersed metal electrocatalysts with high loading.

Phthalocyanine precursors to construct atomically dispersed metal electrocatalysts

2019 Fall National Meeting

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