iChEM Prof. Shi-Gang Sun from XMU made important progress in the non-noble electrocatalyst. Research result of S-Doping of an Fe/N/C ORR Catalyst for Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells with High Power Density was published in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2015, 54, DOI:10.1002/anie.201503159). The paper is also chosen as VIP paper (very important paper).Polymer electrolyte Membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) is an ideal way for clean energy generation. The bottleneck of PEMFCs is high cost, since expensive Pt catalysts are necessary to drive both the cathodic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and anodic hydrogen oxidation. The ORR is kinetically very slow, and requires much more Pt catalyst than hydrogen oxidation. Therefore, the exploration of non-Pt catalysts for the ORR has received great interest. Ternary Fe/N/C is generally considered as one of the most promising candidates.

Prof. Shi-Gang Sun group previously prepared a Fe/N/C catalyst with highly active redox properties (J Am Chem Soc, 2014, 136, 10882−10885). In this new paper, they further revealed that iron salts can also greatly influence the ORR activity of Fe/N/C, and the use of Fe(SCN)3 instead of FeCl3 can nearly double the ORR activity. The improvement may be correlated with S doping and high surface area. The Pmax of PEMFC using this improved catalyst reached 1.03 Wcm2.

This work was done under the co-guidance from Prof. Shi-Gang Sun and Prof. Zhiyou Zhou. The study was supported by grants from Major State Basic Research Development Program of China and NSFC.

Resource:http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201503159/pdf