Soft-template synthesis of mesoporous non-precious metal catalyst with Fe-NX/C active sites for oxygen reduction reaction in fuel cells

We synthesized ordered mesoporous Fe/N/C with highly active Fe-N-X/C sitesdenoted as m-FePhen-C as a non precious metal catalyst (NPMC) for the oxygen reduction reaction in fuel cells. This was the first study that incorporated a catalyst precursor with Fe-N coordination directly in a simple block co-polymer-assisted soft template method for the synthesis of mesoporous Fe/N/C. The synthesized catalyst (m-FePhen-C) showed a high catalytic performance comparable to that of PVC in half-cell tests, and a membrane electrode assembly (MEA) with an m-FePhen-C cathode exhibited 40% higher power density than did an MEA with a commercial Pt/C cathode in single-cell tests, with comparable electrode thicknesses. This result is highly meaningful in that generation of the Fe-N-x/C active sites and formation of ordered mesoporous structure were achieved simultaneously in the simple soft-template-assisted process, and in that the advantages of mesoporous structure with appropriate pore size in metal-containing NPMC were elucidated for high-performance MEAs.