Adding NaPO3 improving the ORR performance of N-doped porous carbon material derived from yuba

To improve the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) performance of biomass-derived carbon materials, N and P co-doped porous carbon ORR catalysts are synthesized by pyrolyzing the mixture containing different of yuba powder and metaphosphate (NaPO3) at 850 ℃ under N2 atmosphere. The as-prepared Y-850-5 contained 4.29 at% of N and 1.13 at% of P. The half-potential and the limiting diffusion current density of Y-850-5 are −0.153 V and −4.78 mA cm-2 @-0.5 V vs. Hg/HgO, respectively, which are improved by 6.5 % and 5.9 % compared to Y-850 (−0.163 V and −4.51 mA cm−2 @-0.5 V vs. Hg/HgO), respectively. DFT calculation indicate that the synergy of N and P co-dope resulted in changing the uniform distribution of electron cloud of carbon and lowering the ORR reaction energy barriers. The above results indicate that NaPO3 can be utilized as P resource to dope and improve the electrochemical performance biomass-derived porous carbon.