Facile synthesis of porous nitrogen-doped holey graphene as an efficient metal-free catalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction

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• 作者：Li Qin ; Ruimin Ding ; Huixiang Wang ; Jianghong Wu ; Conghui Wang…
• 关键词：porous holey N ; doped graphene ; in situ templates ; post ; thermal treatment ; oxygen reduction reaction
• 刊名：Nano Research
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：January 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：10
• 期：1
• 页码：305-319
• 全文大小：
• 刊物类别：Chemistry and Materials Science
• 刊物主题：Nanotechnology; Materials Science, general; Atomic/Molecular Structure and Spectra; Condensed Matter Physics; Biotechnology; Biomedicine, general;
• 出版者：Tsinghua University Press
• ISSN：1998-0000
• 卷排序：10

文摘

Nitrogen-doped graphene is a promising candidate for the replacement of noble metal-based electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reactions (ORRs). The addition of pores and holes into nitrogen-doped graphene enhances the ORR activity by introducing abundant exposed edges, accelerating mass transfer, and impeding aggregation of the graphene sheets. Herein, we present a straightforward but effective strategy for generating porous holey nitrogen-doped graphene (PHNG) via the pyrolysis of urea and magnesium acetate tetrahydrate. Due to the combined effects of the in situ generated gases and MgO nanoparticles, the synthesized PHNGs featured not only numerous out-of-plane pores among the crumpled graphene sheets, but also interpenetrated nanoscale (5–15 nm) holes in the assembled graphene. Moreover, the nitrogen doping configurations of PHNG were optimized by post-thermal treatments at different temperatures. It was found that the overall content of pyridinic and quaternary nitrogen positively correlates with the ORR activity; in particular, pyridinic nitrogen generates the most desirable characteristics for the ORR. This work reveals new routes for the synthesis of PHNG-based materials and elucidates the contributions of various nitrogen species to ORRs.