N/P-Codoped Carbon Nanotubes for Efficient Oxygen Reduction Reaction
Ruixin Ding, Da Zhang, Lansen Bi, Song Shi, Xinqiao Tang, Ziming Zhang, Yan He
Abstract
Carbon materials doped with heteroatoms are considered as an optimal substitute for commercial Pt/C (JM-Pt/C) catalysts in oxygen reduction reactions (ORRs) owing to their cost-effectiveness and elevated efficacy. This paper reported a facile single-step approach for the synthesis of N/P-codoped carbon nanotubes (N/P-CNTs) using diammonium dihydrogen phosphate and 2-methylimidazole as precursors and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as matrix materials. N/P-CNT-900 exhibited exceptional catalytic activity for ORR in alkaline environments with half-wave potential ( E 1/2 ) of 0.83 V and showed commendable methanol tolerance and stability. In addition, the catalysts were used to construct a Zn–air battery (ZAB), and its open circuit voltage (OCV) and peak power density (1.56 V, 193.22 mW cm –2 ) surpassed the performance of JM-Pt/C catalysts (1.50 V, 96.04 mW cm –2 ), indicating their great advantage for extensive-scale utilization in electrochemical energy conversion devices. This work provided ideas for the development and optimization of metal-free ORR catalysts.