Porogen-in-Resin-Induced Fe, N-Doped Interconnected Porous Carbon Sheets as Cathode Catalysts for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells.

The high dependence of cathodic oxygen reduction reaction on precious Pt catalysts hinders the large-scale commercialization of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, while the most promising alternative FeNC catalyst cannot achieve satisfying fuel cell performance yet. By considering the different requirements of atomically dispersed FeNC catalyst on the mass-transfer structure from that of nanoparticle Pt-based catalysts, this work develops a "porogen-in-resin" strategy to approach the Fe, N-doped interconnected porous carbon sheet (ip-FeNCS) catalyst. Three-dimensional (3D) interconnected porous structure and two-dimensional (2D) nanosheet morphology are therefore facilely combined in ip-FeNCS to simultaneously achieve the requirements on the transfer of reactants and accessibility of FeN active sites. Not only great ORR activity can be achieved under both alkaline and acid conditions but also the ip-FeNCS catalyst shows superb activity in practical PEM fuel cells from the high power output to 413 mW/cm2. Such fuel cell performance places this ip-FeNCS catalyst among the best FeNC ORR catalysts reported thus far. This work presents a general and facile approach toward the mass-transfer structure engineering of atomically dispersed carbon catalysts for practical PEM fuel cell applications.