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Interface engineering of plasmonic induced Fe/N/C-F catalyst with enhanced oxygen catalysis performance for fuel cells application

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Abstract

The low intrinsic activity of Fe/N/C oxygen catalysts restricts their commercial application in the fuel cells technique; herein, we demonstrated the interface engineering of plasmonic induced Fe/N/C-F catalyst with primarily enhanced oxygen reduction performance for fuel cells applications. The strong interaction between F and Fe-N4 active sites modifies the catalyst interfacial properties as revealed by X-ray absorption structure spectrum and density functional theory calculations, which changes the electronic structure of Fe-N active site resulting from more atoms around the active site participating in the reaction as well as super-hydrophobicity from C-F covalent bond. The hybrid contribution from active sites and carbon support is proposed to optimize the three-phase microenvironment efficiently in the catalysis electrode, thereby facilitating efficient oxygen reduction performance. High catalytic performance for oxygen reduction and fuel cells practical application catalyzed by Fe/N/C-F catalyst is thus verified, which offers a novel catalyst system for fuel cells technique.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21203008 and 21975025), Beijing Nature Science Foundation (No. 2172051), State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, Donghua University, and Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Committee (No. JCYJ20170817161445322). Thanks for Dr. Lirong Zheng (1W1B@Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility) for providing measurement time. We appreciate help from Dr. Jiaou Wang (4B9B@Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility) for XANES measurement. XPS measurements were performed in the Analysis & Testing Center, Beijing Institute of Technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Cluster Science of Ministry of Education, Beijing Key Laboratory of Photoelectronic/Electrophotonic Conversion Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Xue Yin, Wen Yang, Le Yang & Lei Zhou

  2. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, 225002, China

    Ligang Feng

  3. Institute of Materials Research, Shenzhen Geim Graphene Center, Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Yuanxi Zhang, Haiyan Wu & Lin Gan

  4. Beijing Key Laboratory for Green Catalysis and Separation, College of Environmental and Energy Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, 100124, China

    Shaorui Sun

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  1. Xue Yin
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  2. Ligang Feng
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  3. Wen Yang
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  4. Yuanxi Zhang
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  6. Le Yang
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Correspondence to Ligang Feng, Wen Yang, Lin Gan or Shaorui Sun.

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Interface engineering of plasmonic induced Fe/N/C-F catalyst with enhanced oxygen catalysis performance for fuel cells application

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Yin, X., Feng, L., Yang, W. et al. Interface engineering of plasmonic induced Fe/N/C-F catalyst with enhanced oxygen catalysis performance for fuel cells application. Nano Res. 15, 2138–2146 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3850-9

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