A salt induced gelatin crosslinking strategy to prepare Fe-N doped aligned porous carbon for efficient oxygen reduction reaction catalysts and high-performance supercapacitors

The preparation of low-cost, high-efficiency and stable oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalysts is highly anticipated but remains a challenge. Herein, a novel strategy of CaCl2 solution inducing gelatin crosslinking and acting as aligned pore template was put forward for preparation of Fe-N doped aligned hierarchical porous carbon. Furthermore, the microtopography and length of aligned pore can be controlled by adding NaCl solution. The prepared catalyst exhibited short-range aligned honeycomb hierarchical porous structure with large specific surface area and highly homogeneous distribution of Fe-Nee active sites (Fe-NHHPC-900). Notably, in addition to excellent durability in the alkaline electrolyte, Fe-NHHPC-900 possessed excellent ORR performance with positive half-wave potential of 0.86 V, superior to commercial Pt/C catalysts. As electrode materials of supercapacitors, Fe-NHHPC-900 also displayed a high specific capacitance, excellent rate performance and excellent stability. This work also proved that the unique aligned porous structure can effectively optimize catalyst activity and improve supercapacitor performance. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.