TY - JOUR A1 - Koyutürk, B. A1 - Farber, E. A1 - Wagner, F. A1 - Fellinger, Tim-Patrick A1 - Eisenberg, D. T1 - A simple decagram-scale synthesis of an atomically dispersed, hierarchically porous Fe–N–C catalyst for acidic ORR JF - Journal of Materials Chemistry A N2 - Carbons doped with iron and nitrogen (Fe–N–Cs) are highly promising electrocatalysts for energy conversion reactions in the oxygen, nitrogen and carbon cycles. Containing no platinum group metals, they nevertheless compete with platinum-based catalysts in crucial fuel cell reactions, such as oxygen reduction in acid. Yet deployment of Fe–N–Cs in fuel cells requires also a flow-enhancing pore structure, and a scalable synthesis procedure – a rarely-met combination of requirements. We now report such a simple synthesis of over 10 g of an Fe–N–C catalyst with high activity towards oxygen reduction in acid. Atomically-dispersed Fe–N4 active sites were designed orthogonally and simultaneously with hierarchical micro-, meso- and macroporosity, by exploiting a dual role of magnesium ions during pyrolysis. Combining the “active site imprinting” and “self-templating” strategies in a single novel magnesium iminodiacetate precursor yielded a catalyst with high specific surface area (SSA > 1600 m2 g−1), a flow-enhancing hierarchical porosity, and high relative abundance of the most desirable D1-type Fe–N4 sites (43%, by Mössbauer spectroscopy at 4.2 K). Despite the relatively low iron contents, the catalysts feature halfwave potentials up to 0.70 V vs. RHE at pH 1 and a mass activity of 1.22 A g−1 at 0.8 V vs. RHE in RDE experiments. Thanks to the simple and scalable synthesis, this active and stable catalyst may serve as a workhorse in academic and industrial research into atomically-dispersed ORR electrocatalysis. KW - Catalysis KW - Fe-N-C catalysts KW - Fuel Cells KW - Electrochemistry PY - 2022 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-550113 DO - https://doi.org/10.1039/d2ta00925k SN - 2050-7488 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry AN - OPUS4-55011 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Menga, D. A1 - de Oliveira Guilherme Buzanich, Ana A1 - Wagner, F. A1 - Fellinger, Tim-Patrick T1 - Evaluation of the Specific Activity of MNCs and the Intrinsic Activity of Tetrapyrrolic FeN4 Sites for the Oxygen Reduction Reaction JF - Angewandte Chemie International Edition N2 - M−N−C electrocatalysts are considered pivotal to replace expensive precious group metal-based materials in electrocatalytic conversions. However, their development is hampered by the limited availability of methods for the evaluation of the intrinsic activity of different active sites, like pyrrolic FeN4 sites within Fe−N−Cs. Currently, new synthetic procedures based on active-site imprinting followed by an ion exchange reaction, e.g. Zn-to-Fe, are producing single-site M−N−Cs with outstanding activity. Based on the same replacement principle, we employed a conservative iron extraction to partially remove the Fe ions from the N4 cavities in Fe−N−Cs. Having catalysts with the same morphological properties and Fe ligation that differ solely in Fe content allows for the facile determination of the decrease in density of active sites and their turn-over frequency. In this way, insight into the specific activity of M−N−Cs is obtained and for single-site catalysts the intrinsic activity of the site is accessible. This new approach surpasses limitations of methods that rely on probe molecules and, together with those techniques, offers a novel tool to unfold the complexity of Fe−N−C catalyst and M−N−Cs in general. KW - Fe-N-C catalysts KW - M-N-C catalysts KW - Fuel Cells PY - 2022 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-567406 DO - https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202207089 SN - 1433-7851 VL - 61 IS - 50 SP - 1 EP - 6 PB - Wiley-VHC AN - OPUS4-56740 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -