What is it about?
Large number of catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction have been tested electrochemically and their surface chemical composition was analyzed by XPS. Differences in chemical compositions were correlated to differences in activity. Multiple types of chemical structures were found to be responsible for different steps of oxygen reduction. In metal-free nitrogen-carbon nanomaterials, chemical structures responsible for partial reduction of oxygen to peroxide was identified. In metal-containing M-N-C materials, nitrogen coordinated to transition metal was found to be active towards most efficient reaction of oxygen reduction completely to water.
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Why is it important?
It is important to identify the chemical structures that cause unwanted inefficient reactions and identify synthetic routes that eliminate creation of these chemistries. Roles of different nitrogen-carbon structures were clearly identified which is the first step towards creating efficient catalysts for fuel cells.
Perspectives
Behind each point in the correlation plots that were built to derive the knowledge about role of individual structures in mechanism of oxygen reduction there is a knowledge database of synthetic parameters, replicate samples, replicate spectroscopic observations and multiple electrochemical tests putting high value into the structure-to-property understanding derived.
Dr Kateryna Artyushkova
Physical Electronics
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Chemistry of Multitudinous Active Sites for Oxygen Reduction Reaction in Transition Metal–Nitrogen–Carbon Electrocatalysts, The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, November 2015, American Chemical Society (ACS),
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.5b07653.
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