Oxygen reduction activity of iron and nitrogen doped carbon films

Yamamoto, Shunya; Hakoda, Teruyuki; Yamaki, Tetsuya; Shimada, Akihiko; Yoshikawa, Masahito

Developments of low Pt loading catalysts and non-Pt catalysts for an oxygen reduction reaction have been required for practical use of polymer electrode membrane fuel cells. One promising non-Pt catalyst is based on the transition metal(TM)-nitrogen (N)-carbon(C) systems (TM: Fe, Co, Ni, etc.). In the present study, we prepared Fe and N doped carbon film on a glassy carbon (GC) substrate under the different presence of N gas during the pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The ORR activity of the films was electrochemically determined using a rotating disk electrode system. The ORR activity of Fe-N-C films increased with increasing N gas pressure during the deposition. The Fe-N-C film prepared at 800C under the 5 torr of N gas pressure showed high ORR activity; its ORR potential was 0.75 V (vs. NHE). Furthermore, XPS results suggest that the ORR activity of Fe-N-C relates to the N atoms which were connected to three C atoms (graphitic-N).