Highly active Vulcan carbon composite for oxygen reduction reaction in alkaline medium

• Vulcan carbon XC-72 was modified by peptone and FeCl3 through pyrolysis.
• N-XC-72(Fe) showed higher catalytic activity than Pt/C for oxygen reduction reaction.
• Synergy among N, Fe and C results in the high activity of N-XC-72(Fe).

Vulcan XC-72R carbon black (XC-72), the commonly applied support for electrocatalysts, is seldom investigated as an electrocatalyst itself for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). In this work, Vulcan carbon composites (N-XC-72(Fe)) were prepared by pyrolyzing a mixture of Vulcan carbon, peptone and Fe salt at 800 °C in N2 atmosphere, and characterized using SEM, TEM, XRD, Raman spectroscopy, and XPS analysis. Electrochemical analysis showed that the onset potential and half-wave potential for ORR on the N-XC-72(Fe) electrode was 0.017 and -0.151 V respectively, lower than those of the XC-72 and N-XC-72 electrode. More importantly, N-XC-72(Fe) showed superior ORR performance than commercial Pt/C besides having better methanol tolerance.

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