Scientific Achievement
Active site(s) in a high-performance PGM-free Fe-N-C catalyst are visualized with scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM)and computationally correlated with specific lattice-level carbon structures.
Significance and Impact
The development of high-performance and durable PGM-free catalysts as an alternative to expensive Pt-based electrocatalysts can enable the widespread implementation of fuel-cell powered vehicles.
Research Details
– (CM+PANI)-Fe-C catalyst synthesized from cyanamide (CM), polyaniline (PANI), and iron (III) chloride.
– Aberration-corrected STEM imaging, quantitative EELS, and quantum chemistry calculations confirm zigzag edge-hosted FeN4 spontaneously ligated with OH lead to highly ORR-active structures.
H.T. Chung, D.A. Cullen, D. Higgins, B.T. Sneed, E.F. Holby, K.L. More, and P. Zelenay, Science 357, 479 (2017).
