Molecular architectures of iron complexes for oxygen reduction catalysis-Activity enhancement by hydroxide ions coupling.

Developing cost-effective and high-performance electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is critical for clean energy generation. Here, we propose an approach to the synthesis of iron phthalocyanine nanotubes (FePc NTs) as a highly active and selective electrocatalyst for ORR. The performance is significantly superior to FePc in randomly aggregated and molecularly dispersed states, as well as the commercial Pt/C catalyst.

Importing Antibonding-Orbital Occupancy through Pd-O-Gd Bridge Promotes Electrocatalytic Oxygen Reduction.

The active-site density, intrinsic activity, and durability of Pd-based materials for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) are critical to their application in industrial energy devices. This work constructs a series of carbon-based rare-earth (RE) oxides (Gd O , Sm O , Eu O , and CeO ) by using RE metal-organic frameworks to tune the ORR performance of the Pd sites through the Pd-RE O interface interaction. Taking Pd-Gd O /C as a representative, it is identified that the strong coupling between Pd and Gd O induces the formation of the Pd-O-Gd bridge, which triggers charge redistribution of Pd and Gd O .