Noble metal supported hexagonal boron nitride for the oxygen reduction reaction: a DFT study.

Discovering active, stable and cost-effective catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is of utmost interest for commercialization of fuel cells. Scarce and expensive noble metals such as Pt and Pd are the state-of-the-art active ORR catalysts but suffer from low stability against CO poisoning. Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is a particularly attractive material due to its low cost and stability; however, it suffers from intrinsic low activity toward the ORR in the pristine form as a result of its inherently low conductivity with a large band gap of ∼5.