Improving Oxygen Reduction Reaction Performance of Pt by a N-Doping Strategy and Inducing Tensile Strain of Nanoparticles

The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) plays a key role in improving the efficiency of energy-storage devices, and Pt nanoparticles anchored in carbon support are one of the most efficient electrocatalysts for ORR. However, Pt falling off the carbon carrier seriously affects the catalytic performance. In this work, we report an innovative Lewis-acid-doping strategy to design an efficient N-doping Pt/N/C catalyst, the special adsorption mechanism of the Pt precursor enhances the ability of the catalyst to anchor N atom, as well as the binding force between Pt nanoparticles and the substrate. N-doping within Pt lattice induces tensile strain and enhances the ORR activity and stability of the catalyst, the half-wave potential of Pt/N/C exhibits a positive shift of 50 mV relative to that of commercial JM Pt/C. This work presents an innovative N-doping strategy to prepare efficient electrocatalysts with defects, indicating a promising potential for the practical applications.