The Solid‐Phase Synthesis of an Fe‐N‐C Electrocatalyst for High‐Power Proton‐Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

Abstract

Abstract The environmentally friendly synthesis of highly active Fe‐N‐C electrocatalysts for proton‐exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) is desirable but remains challenging. A simple and scalable method is presented to fabricate Fe II ‐doped ZIF‐8, which can be further pyrolyzed into Fe‐N‐C with 3 wt % of Fe exclusively in Fe‐N 4 active moieties. Significantly, this Fe‐N‐C derived acidic PEMFC exhibits an unprecedented current density of 1.65 A cm −2 at 0.6 V and the highest power density of 1.14 W cm −2 compared with previously reported NPMCs. The excellent PEMFC performance can be attributed to the densely and atomically dispersed Fe‐N 4 active moieties on the small and uniform catalyst nanoparticles.