TY  - JOUR
EP  - 1304
AV  - public
VL  - 11
SP  - 1295
Y1  - 2018/02/14/
TI  - Tunable Bifunctional Activity of MnxCo3-xO4 Nanocrystals Decorated at Carbon Nanotubes for Oxygen Electrocatalysis
N1  - This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images
or other third party material in this article are included in the article?s Creative Commons license,
unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license,
users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this
license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
SN  - 1864-564X
UR  - http://doi.org/10.1002/cssc.201800049
ID  - discovery10044685
N2  - Noble-metal free electrocatalysts are attractive for cathodic oxygen catalysis in alkaline membrane fuel cells, metal-air batteries and electrolysers. However, much of the structure-activity relationship is poorly understood. Here, comprehensive development of manganese cobalt oxide/nitrogen-doped multi-walled carbon nanotube hybrids (MnxCo3-xO4@NCNTs) is reported for highly reversible oxygen reduction and evolution reactions (ORR and OER). The hybrid structures are rationally designed by fine control of surface chemistry and synthesis conditions, including: tuning of functional groups at surfaces, congruent growth of nanocrystals with controllable phases and particle sizes, and ensuring strong coupling across catalyst-support interfaces. Electrochemical tests reveal distinctly different oxygen catalytic activities among the hybrids, MnxCo3-xO4@NCNTs. A nanocrystalline MnCo2O4@NCNTs (MCO@NCNTs) hybrid shows superior ORR activity, with a favourable onset potential and a high current density response, equivalent to the commercial Pt@C standard. Moreover, the hybrid structure exhibits tuneable and durable catalytic activities for both ORR and OER, with a lowest overall potential of 0.93 V. It is clear that the long-term electrochemical activities can be ensured by rational design of hybrid structures from the nanoscale.
KW  - Bifunctional electrocatalyst
KW  -  Carbon nanotubes
KW  -  Manganese cobalt oxide
KW  -  Oxygen reduction reaction
KW  -  oxygen evolution reaction
A1  - Zhao, T
A1  - Gadipelli, S
A1  - He, G
A1  - Ward, M
A1  - Do, D
A1  - Zhang, P
A1  - Guo, Z
JF  - ChemSusChem
ER  -