Synthesis of Mesoporous FeN/C Materials with High Catalytic Performance in the Oxygen Reduction Reaction

The tedious and costly route of the general nanocasting method hinders the commercial application of mesoporous non-precious metal catalysts based on transition metal-coordinating nitrogen-doped carbons (MN/C). Here, a simple, economic and sustainable hydrothermal carbonization (HTC)/soft templating method is demonstrated for the direct preparation of mesoporous FeN/C materials (FeN/MC). By this method, FeN/MC materials with high specific surface area, hierarchically mesoporous structure, and appropriate iron and nitrogen contents are prepared. The optimized FeN/MC materials exhibit superior catalytic performance in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) to commercial Pt/C in 0.1M KOH. This confirms that the materials are one of the most efficient non-precious metal catalysts for the ORR in alkaline electrolyte. In addition, considerable durability and ORR activity are demonstrated by the FeN/MC materials in 0.1M HClO4. Thus, this HTC/soft templating method has great promise for the practical application of this kind of non-precious metal catalysts in the ORR.