Back to Search
Start Over
Graphitic Nitrogen Is Responsible for Oxygen Electroreduction on Nitrogen-Doped Carbons in Alkaline Electrolytes: Insights from Activity Attenuation Studies and Theoretical Calculations
- Source :
- ACS Catalysis. 8:6827-6836
- Publication Year :
- 2018
- Publisher :
- American Chemical Society (ACS), 2018.
-
Abstract
- To date, controversies remain in the unambiguous identification of the active sites in N-doped carbons for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). In the present study, prolonged potential cycling was conducted on three N-doped carbons in O2-saturated 0.1 M KOH aqueous solution, where apparent attenuation of the ORR activity was observed, within the context of limiting current and onset potential. The attenuation trend of the limiting current was closely correlated with the diminishing content of graphitic N, as manifested in X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements and MottâSchottky analysis. In addition, the specific activity per graphitic N was found to be almost invariant within a wide range of potentials during prolonged potential cycling for all three model catalysts, in good agreement with theoretical prediction, whereas no such a correlation was observed with pyrrolic or pyridinic N. Density functional theory calculations showed that the first-electron reduction, which is a rate-determining step for...
- Subjects :
- Aqueous solution
Chemistry
Inorganic chemistry
Limiting current
chemistry.chemical_element
Context (language use)
02 engineering and technology
General Chemistry
Electrolyte
010402 general chemistry
021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology
01 natural sciences
Oxygen
Catalysis
0104 chemical sciences
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
Density functional theory
0210 nano-technology
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 21555435
- Volume :
- 8
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- ACS Catalysis
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........3eb55648b56d30d44fb42962c1e1c5be