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Research Article

Natural tea-leaf-derived, ternary-doped 3D porous carbon as a high-performance electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction

Zhaoyan Guo1,§, Zhen Xiao1,§, Guangyuan Ren1, Guozheng Xiao1, Ying Zhu1(), Liming Dai2(), Lei Jiang3
Key Laboratory of Bio-inspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of Ministry of EducationSchool of Chemistry and EnvironmentBeihang UniversityBeijing100191China
Department of Macromolecular Science and EngineeringCase Western Reserve UniversityCleveland10900USA
Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular SciencesInstitute of ChemistryChinese Academy of SciencesBeijing100190China

§These authors contributed equally to this work.

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Abstract

To commercialize fuel cells and metal-air batteries, cost-effective, highly active catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) must be developed. Herein, we describe the development of low-cost, heteroatom (N, P, Fe) ternary-doped, porous carbons (HDPC). These materials are prepared by one-step pyrolysis of natural tea leaves treated with an iron salt, without any chemical and physical activation. The natural structure of the tea leaves provide a 3D hierarchical porous structure after carbonization. Moreover, heteroatom containing organic compounds in tea leaves act as precursors to functionalize the resultant carbon frameworks. In addition, we found that the polyphenols present in tea leaves act as ligands, reacting with Fe ions to form coordination compounds; these complexes acted as the precursors for Fe and N active sites. After pyrolysis, the as-prepared HDPC electrocatalysts, especially HDPC-800 (pyrolyzed at 800 ℃), had more positive onsets, half-wave potentials, and higher catalytic activities for the ORR, which proceeds via a direct four-electron reaction pathway in alkaline media, similar to commercial Pt/C catalysts. Furthermore, HDPC-X also showed enhanced durability and better tolerance to methanol crossover and CO poisoning effects in comparison to commercial Pt/C, making them promising alternatives for state-of-the-art ORR electrocatalysts for electrochemical energy conversion. The method used here provides valuable guidelines for the design of high-performance ORR electrocatalysts from natural sources at the industrial scale.

Keywords

green tea leavesoxygen reduction catalystsheteroatoms doped hierarchically porous carbonsynergistic effect

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Nano Research
Volume 9 Issue 5,
May 2016
Pages 1244-1255
DOI: 10.1007/s12274-016-1020-2
Cite this article:
Guo Z, Xiao Z, Ren G, et al. Natural tea-leaf-derived, ternary-doped 3D porous carbon as a high-performance electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction. Nano Research, 2016, 9(5): 1244-1255. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1020-2
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