Cobalt doped nanoporous hollow carbon spheres as novel non-precious metal oxygen reduction electrocatalysts

In this work, we reported the synthesis of a new non-precious metal oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalyst made from polymer. A nitrogen-containing polydopamine (PDA) was prepared and bonded with cobalt (Co) for the forming of Co doped PDA nanoporous hollow carbon sphere (PDA-HCS-Co). The freshly prepared PDA-HCS-Co exhibits a similar surprisingly high ORR activity in alkaline solution, compared to commercial Pt-C catalyst but far exceeding Pt-C catalyst in stability and tolerance to crossover effect. The high electrocatalytic activity of PDA-HCS-Co arises from numerous pores and high content of cobalt-nitrogen species (Co-N, 67.3% of all cobalt species), which plays an important role in promoting the ORR activity. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.