Positive Effect of Heat Treatment on Carbon-Supported CoS Nanocatalysts for Oxygen Reduction Reaction

It is of increasing interest and an important challenge to develop highly efficient less-expensive cathode catalysts for anion-exchange membrane fuel cells (AEMFCs). In this work, we have directly prepared a carbon-supported CoS nanocatalyst in a solvothermal route and investigated the effect of heat-treatment on electrocatalytic activity and long-term stability using rotating ring-disk electrode (RRDE). The results show that the heat-treatment below 400 °C under nitrogen atmosphere significantly enhanced the electrocatalytic performance of CoS catalyst as a function of annealed temperature in terms of the cathodic current density, the half-wave potential, the HO2− product and the number of electrons transferred. The CoS catalyst that annealed at 400 °C (CoS-400) has exhibited a promising performance with the half-wave potential of 0.71 V vs. RHE (the highest one for non-precious metal chalcogenides), the minimum HO2− product of 4.3% at 0.60 V vs. RHE and close to the 4-electron pathway during the oxygen reduction reaction in 0.1 M KOH. Also, the CoS-400 catalyst has comparable durability to the Pt/C catalyst