Pt-Free Electrocatalysts for the Oxygen Reduction Reaction
A special issue of Catalysts (ISSN 2073-4344). This special issue belongs to the section "Electrocatalysis".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2020) | Viewed by 3193
Special Issue Editors
Interests: carbon nanomaterials; electrocatalysts; biomaterials; biomass valorization; energy conversion and storage
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) plays a significant role in the performance of numerous energy‐conversion devices, such as low‐temperature fuel cells, including hydrogen, alcohol, and microbial fuel cells, as well as metal–air batteries. Electroreduction of oxygen is a rather complex mechanism involving a multielectron transfer process with several elementary steps. Thus, one of the major challenges is the sluggish ORR that requires high loading of Pt catalysts. Apart from the high cost, Pt‐based electrocatalysts suffer from CO poisoning, methanol crossover, and long‐term instability due to particle aggregation and dissolution. Thus, decreasing Pt loading without compromising the performance has been a major goal. There has been intensive attention within the past decade on the development of nonprecious metal catalysts, with heteroatom-doped carbon nanomaterials and transition metal-based carbon catalysts particularly prioritized. Doping with heteroatoms such as nitrogen (N), boron (B), phosphorus (P), sulfur (S), silicon (Si), and halogens has been reported to induce synergistic effects because of their different sizes and electronegativity with carbon, which polarizes adjacent carbon atoms and facilitates the oxygen adsorption. Addition of transitional metals within the heteroatom-doped carbon structure can substantially improve the electrocatalytic performance not only in anion exchange membrane fuel cells (AEMFCs), but also in proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), where a higher ORR overpotential is observed. On the other hand, inexpensive and abundant plant and animal biomass have become attractive options to obtain electrocatalysts upon conversion into active carbon.
The recent research efforts provided the foundation for substitution of expensive and rare Pt-based catalyst materials through the development of transition metal-based catalysts or metal-free alternatives. This Special Issue focuses on recent advances in ORR catalysts including advances in (1) novel methods and precursors for the synthesis of Pt-free electrocatalysts, (2) investigation of ORR mechanisms on Pt-free electrocatalysts, (3) understanding of catalytic deactivation and improving the stability, and (4) performance investigation of ORR electrocatalysts in fuel cells and/or metal–air batteries.
Dr. Maryam Borghei
Prof. Dr. Kaido Tammeveski
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR)
- Pt-free electrocatalysts
- Transition metal based electrocatalysts
- Nonmetal electrocatalysts
- Heteroatom doped carbons (N, B, P, S-doped carbons)
- Novel and more economical precursors
- Biomass-derived precursors
- Valorization of wastes
- ORR mechanism and reaction models
