In-Situ Silica Xerogel Assisted Facile Synthesis of Fe-N-C Catalysts with Dense Fe-Nx Active Sites for Efficient Oxygen Reduction

In the past decade, atomically dispersed Fe active sites (coordinated with nitrogen) on carbon materials (Fe-N-C) have emerged rapidly as promising single-atom catalysts (SACs) for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) to substitute precious group metal (PGM) catalysts, owing to their earth abundance and low cost. Nonetheless, the production of highly active Fe-N-C SACs is largely restricted by material cost, low product yield and difficulty of microstructure design. Herein, the authors demonstrate a facile in-situ xerogel (ISG) assisted synthetic strategy, using cheap materials, to construct Fe-N-C SACs (ISG Fe-N-C). The porous silica xerogel, formed in-situ with the Fe-N-C precursors, encourages the emergence of enormous micropores/mesopores and homogeneous confinement/protection to the precursors during pyrolysis, benefiting to the formation of abundant accessible active sites (27.6 x 10(19) sites g(-1)). Correspondingly, the ISG Fe-N-C exhibits excellent ORR activity with a half-wave potential (E-1/2 = 0.91 V) in alkaline medium. The Zn-air battery assembled using the ISG Fe-N-C SACs as the bifunctional catalyst of air cathode, demonstrates commendable performance with high peak power density of 249.1 mW cm(-2) and superior long-term stability (660 cycles with 220 h). This work offers an economic and efficient way to fabricate PGM-free SACs for diverse applications.

Automated summary

In the past decade, atomically dispersed Fe active sites on carbon materials have emerged as promising catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction. However, the production of highly active catalysts is restricted by material cost and difficulty of microstructure design. The authors demonstrate a facile in-situ xerogel assisted synthetic strategy to construct Fe-N-C catalysts with excellent activity and potential application.