One-step rapid in-situ synthesis of nitrogen and sulfur co-doped three-dimensional honeycomb-ordered carbon supported PdNi nanoparticles as efficient electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction in alkaline solution

•PdNi alloy is supported on N and S co-doped 3D honeycomb-ordered carbon.•The PdNi-NS/C is employed as electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction.•The electrocatalyst shows significant improvement in activity and durability.

The high contents of nitrogen (3.23 at.%) and sulfur (4.35 at.%) co-doped honeycomb-ordered carbon (NS/C) is prepared by one-step rapid in-situ method, which uses silica as template and functionalized fluidic acrylonitrile telomer (ANT) as C, N and S sources. Well dispersed binary alloy PdNi nanocrystals with an average size of 3 nm are supported on NS/C by a simple chemical reduction method. When used as an electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in alkaline solution, the electrocatalytic performance of commercial Pd/C (20 wt%), NS/C, Pd-NS/C, PdNi-NS/C are studied and it is found that PdNi-NS/C exhibits superior performance both in catalytic activity and stability. The half wave potential (E1/2) of the PdNi-NS/C is positively shifted by 100 mV compared to commercial Pd/C. The chronoamperometry (i-t) tests show that the current retention of PdNi-NS/C is 91%, while for the commercial Pd/C is only 40% after 10000 s.