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Review Article

High-performance oxygen reduction and evolution carbon catalysis: From mechanistic studies to device integration

John W. F. To1,§Jia Wei Desmond Ng1,2,§Samira Siahrostami1,§Ai Leen Koh3Yangjin Lee4Zhihua Chen1Kara D. Fong1Shucheng Chen1Jiajun He5Won-Gyu Bae1Jennifer Wilcox5Hu Young Jeong6Kwanpyo Kim4Felix Studt7,8,9( )Jens K. Nørskov1,7( )Thomas F. Jaramillo1( )Zhenan Bao1( )
Department of Chemical EngineeringStanford UniversityStanfordCA94305USA
Institute of Chemical and Engineering SciencesAgency for ScienceTechnology and ResearchJurong Island627833Singapore
Stanford Nano Shared FacilitiesStanford UniversityStanfordCA94305USA
Department of PhysicsUlsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)Ulsan, 689-798Republic of Korea
Department of Chemical and Biological EngineeringColorado School of MinesGoldenCO80401USA
UNIST Central Research Facilities (UCRF)Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)Ulsan, 689-798Republic of Korea
SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and Catalysis SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory2575 Sand Hill RoadMenlo ParkCA94025USA
Institute of Catalysis Research and TechnologyKarlsruhe Institute of TechnologyHermann-von-Helmholtz Platz 176344Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany
Institute for Chemical Technology and Polymer ChemistryKarlsruhe Institute of TechnologyEngesserstr. 1876131Karlsruhe, Germany

§ These authors contributed equally to this work.

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Abstract

The development of high-performance and low-cost oxygen reduction and evolution catalysts that can be easily integrated into existing devices is crucial for the wide deployment of energy storage systems that utilize O2-H2O chemistries, such as regenerative fuel cells and metal-air batteries. Herein, we report an NH3-activated N-doped hierarchical carbon (NHC) catalyst synthesized via a scalable route, and demonstrate its device integration. The NHC catalyst exhibited good performance for both the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), as demonstrated by means of electrochemical studies and evaluation when integrated into the oxygen electrode of a regenerative fuel cell. The activities observed for both the ORR and the OER were comparable to those achieved by state-of-the-art Pt and Ir catalysts in alkaline environments. We have further identified the critical role of carbon defects as active sites for electrochemical activity through density functional theory calculations and high-resolution TEM visualization. This work highlights the potential of NHC to replace commercial precious metals in regenerative fuel cells and possibly metal-air batteries for cost-effective storage of intermittent renewable energy.

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Nano Research
Pages 1163-1177
Cite this article:
To JWF, Ng JWD, Siahrostami S, et al. High-performance oxygen reduction and evolution carbon catalysis: From mechanistic studies to device integration. Nano Research, 2017, 10(4): 1163-1177. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1347-8
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Received: 10 August 2016
Revised: 22 October 2016
Accepted: 24 October 2016
Published: 30 November 2016
© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016
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