FeNC oxygen reduction electrocatalyst with high utilisation penta‐coordinated sites

International audienceAtomic Fe in N-doped carbon (FeNC) electrocatalysts for oxygen (O$_2$) reduction at the cathode of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are the most promising alternative to platinum-group-metal catalysts. Despite recent progress on atomic FeNC O$_2$ reduction, their controlled synthesis and stability for practical applications remains challenging. A two-step synthesis approach has recently led to significant advances in terms of Fe-loading and mass activity; however, the Fe utilisation remains low owing to the difficulty of building scaffolds with sufficient porosity that electrochemically exposes the active sites. Herein, we addressed this issue by coordinating Fe in a highly porous nitrogen doped carbon support (~3295 m$^2$ g$^{-1}$), prepared by pyrolysis of inexpensive 2,4,6triaminopyrimidine and a Mg$^{2+}$ salt active site template and porogen. Upon Fe coordination, a high electrochemical active site density of 2.54×10$^{19}$ sites g$_{FeNC}$$^{-1}$ and a record 52% FeN$_x$ electrochemical utilisation based on in situ nitrite stripping was achieved. The Fe single atoms are characterised pre-and post-electrochemical accelerated stress testing by aberration-corrected high-angle annular dark field scanning transmission electron microscopy, showing no Fe clustering. Moreover, ex situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy and low-temperature Mössbauer spectroscopy suggest the presence of penta-coordinated Fe sites, which were further studied by density functional theory calculations