Evolution Pathway from Iron Compounds to Fe1(II)–N4 Sites through Gas-Phase Iron during Pyrolysis

• Published in: Journal of the American Chemical Society Vol. 142; no. 3; pp. 1417 - 1423
• Main Authors: Li, Jingkun, Jiao, Li, Wegener, Evan, Richard, Lynne Larochelle, Liu, Ershuai, Zitolo, Andrea, Sougrati, Moulay Tahar, Mukerjee, Sanjeev, Zhao, Zipeng, Huang, Yu, Yang, Fan, Zhong, Sichen, Xu, Hui, Kropf, A. Jeremy, Jaouen, Frédéric, Myers, Deborah J, Jia, Qingying
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 22.01.2020
• Subjects: carbon; catalysts; electrochemistry; gases; iron; iron compounds; iron oxides; pyrolysis; X-ray absorption spectroscopy

Pyrolysis is indispensable for synthesizing highly active Fe–N–C catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in acid, but how Fe, N, and C precursors transform to ORR-active sites during pyrolysis remains unclear. This knowledge gap obscures the connections between the input precursors and the...