And Nitrogen-Codoped Porous Graphene
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Journal of Catalysis 359 (2018) 242–250 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Catalysis journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jcat Synergistic enhancement of oxygen reduction reaction with BC3 and graphitic-N in boron- and nitrogen-codoped porous graphene ⇑ ⇑ Li Qin a,b,d, Liancheng Wang a,b, , Xi Yang a,b, Ruimin Ding a,b, Zhanfeng Zheng a, Xiaohua Chen c, , ⇑ Baoliang Lv a,b, a State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Taiyuan 030001, China b CAS Key Laboratory of Carbon Materials, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Taiyuan 030001, China c School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400030, China d University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China article info abstract Article history: Rational design and optimization of metal-free electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is Received 27 September 2017 crucial for fuel cells and metal-air batteries. However, identifying design principle that links the active Revised 4 January 2018 sites and their synergistic effects is far from satisfactory, especially for B,N-codoped graphene. Herein, Accepted 15 January 2018 we provide four B,N-codoped porous graphenes with tunable contents of pyridinic N, graphitic N, BC3 and C-B(N)O. BC3 shows multiple-fold specific activity compared with graphitic N and pyridinic N, while C-B(N)O offers no positive contribution. Density functional theory calculations indicate that the synergis- Keywords: tic effect between graphitic N and BC can effectively facilitate the reduction of O . These pinpoint that B, N-codoped porous graphene 3 2 graphitic N and BC are the main active sites among various nitrogen or/and boron doping configurations. ORR 3 Zn-air battery The most active catalyst exhibits superior activity than the commercial Pt/C catalyst using the RDE Specific activity method in alkaline media, and displays comparable power density to Pt/C catalyst in Zn-air battery. DFT Ó 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction to commercial Pt/C catalyst and superior durability, but also they are cost-effective and derive from earth-abundant elements [6– The necessity of the low-carbon economy and sustainable 8]. To rationally design and optimize these metal-free catalysts, a development in modern society greatly encourage the progress of deeper understanding of the origin of their electrocatalytic activity fuel cells and metal-air batteries [1]. Rational design of highly for ORR is highly requested, and a fundamental issue lied in which active and cost-effective electrocatalysts for cathodic oxygen doping configuration contributes to the catalysis should be reduction reaction stands at the central stage for making these endowed with more important significance. devices commercially available, since the sluggish reaction kinetics Nitrogen-doped graphene (NG) is the most extensively investi- and high overpotential of ORR significantly limit the practical gated metal-free catalysts towards ORR. The pyridinic and graphi- energy density and energy conversion efficiency [2]. Platinum tic N are described as the potential active sites, and the and its alloys have been widely investigated as active catalysts contribution of former is generally more important [9,10]. Nitrogen for ORR [3,4], and ORR-favored Pt(1 1 1) facets and/or defects with atom featured higher electronegativity (vN = 3.04) than that of car- hollow or frame structure were designed to maximize the exposed bon (vC = 2.55) atom can provide with electron-withdrawing abil- active sites and minimize the usage [5], still its common usage in ity and thus create positive charges on adjacent carbon atoms [11]. large scale is hindered by the prohibitive costs and scarcity of plat- The altered charge or spin distribution of the sp2 carbon plane is inum. Recently, metal-free heteroatom-doped carbonaceous mate- the catalytic nature of metal-free graphene-based catalysts for rials as the cathodic ORR catalysts have attracted tremendous ORR, as they can facilitate the oxygen adsorption or/and subse- attention, not only because they exhibit comparable ORR activity quent OAO bond breaking [12]. In this regard, a higher degree of electron delocalization and polarization occurs in case of both ⇑ electron-withdrawing and -donating atoms in graphene frame- Corresponding authors at: State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion, Institute of works, thus several attempts have been made to improve the Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Taiyuan 030001, China (L. Wang, B. Lv). ORR catalytic activity by doping graphene with both electronega- E-mail addresses: [email protected] (L. Wang), [email protected] (X. Chen), tive N and electropositive B (vB = 2.05) atoms [7,8,13,14]. [email protected] (B. Lv). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcat.2018.01.013 0021-9517/Ó 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. L. Qin et al. / Journal of Catalysis 359 (2018) 242–250 243 Unfortunately, the B,N co-doped graphene, based on previous 500 °C, and then heated to 1000 °C for 15 min or 60 min to give reports, demonstrated diverse ORR performances. Several exhib- B,N-PG-15 or B,N-PG-60, respectively. ited much more enhanced ORR activity than nitrogen-doped gra- B,N-PG-O catalysts were synthesized by using HNO3-oxidized phene and were even superior to commercial Pt/C, but others N-PG (named N-PG-O) as the matrix. Typically, N-PG (25 mg) were much worse [8,13]. The differences of co-doped catalysts was dispersed homogeneously in 8 M HNO3 (50 ml) by sonicating. are mainly ascribed to the boron or/and nitrogen doping configura- The suspension was sealed in a Telfon-lined autoclave and main- tions. The isolated B and N configurations (especially, pyridinic N, tained at 60 °C for 12 h. The obtained sample was filtrated and graphitic N and BC3) rather than bonded B-N are of great impor- washed with deionized water and ethanol in turn for three times. tance to the ORR catalytic activity, because the neutralization After drying at 60 °C, N-PG-O was obtained. The doping process between the extra electron of nitrogen atom and the vacant orbital was all the same with B,N-PG. B,N-PG-O-15 and B,N-PG-O-60 of boron atom in the bonded B-N leads to unfavorable chemisorp- was obtained by annealing N-PG-O with boric acid at 1000 °C for tion of O2 [15–18]. Interestingly, Gong and coworkers suggested 15 or 60 min, respectively. that the BN pair in the basal plane was inert to ORR, but the BN pair at the edges could polarize the neighboring C atoms and shown 2.2. Characterizations enhanced ORR properties via bridge adsorption of O2 [7]. However, C-B(N)O species, which is frequently identified in B,N-codoped gra- JSM-7001F field emission scanning electron microscope was phenes by XPS measurements [19,20], is most likely to have B-N performed to obtain the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) pair located at the edges and its effect on ORR activity remains images. JEOL-2100F transmission electron microscope was per- unclear. formed to obtain the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) To develop high-performance B, N-codoped catalysts, high con- images and high-resolution TEM (HR-TEM) images. Bruker D8- centration of the main active sites and their full exposure are Advance-A25 diffractometer equipped with a Cu Ka radiation required. However, the contribution of aforementioned configura- was used to record X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns. Labram tions (pyridinic N, graphitic N, BC3 and C-B(N)O) and their possible HR800 Raman spectrometer equipped with a 514 nm Ar+ laser synergy to catalytic performance for ORR, which are the corner- (Horiba Jobin-Yvon) was performed to obtain the Raman spectra. stone of exploring the active sites, have yet to be fully understood X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS, Kratos AXIS UL TRA DLD) because of the relatively complicated boron or/and nitrogen con- was used to analyze the elemental composition and surface chem- figurations [21]. To address these issues, the preparation of co- ical configuration of synthesized catalysts. Micromeritcs Tristar doped catalysts with precisely controlled doping configuration 3020 with N2 as absorbate at 77 K was used to obtain the nitrogen and concentration in the atomic scale is highly desired. The cata- adsorption-desorption isotherms, and the specific surface area was lysts should possess similar morphology, number of exposed edges calculated by Brunauer–Emmett-Teller (BET) method. and graphitization degree, as these properties would affect the ORR performance. B,N-codoped graphenes are supposed to have abun- 2.3. RDE-RRDE electrochemical measurements dant pores, which could not only fully expose the active B,N config- urations, but also facilitate ion transport and provide sufficient Electrochemical measurements were carried out using an elec- contact area between the catalysts, oxygen and electrolyte. trochemical workstation (CHI 760D, CH Instruments, Inc., Shang- Herein, we developed four B, N-codoped porous graphenes and hai, China) with a three-electrode cell. For ORR experiments, controlled their B, N configurations and contents by altering the rotating disk electrode or rotating ring-disk electrode (RDE and amount of surface oxygen-containing groups on N-doped porous RRDE, Pine Instruments Co. Ltd. USA) was loaded with catalysts graphene matrix and annealing time with boric acid. The contribu- and used as the working electrode. The reference and counter elec- tion of four potentially active B or/and N configurations (namely trodes were an Hg/HgO (KOH, 1 M) electrode and a graphite rod, graphitic N, pyridinic N, BC and C-B(N)O) was identified through 3 respectively. All the potentials in this work was converted to the the relationship between their relative contents and the ORR activ- reference of the reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) according to ity of four catalysts according to Guo et al.’s method [10].