N- S- co-Doped Carbon as an Efficient Electrocatalyst toward Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is a pivotal reaction in many electrochemical systems, but, due to its kinetic hindrance, it needs electrocatalysts in order to “conveniently” proceed. Heteroatom-doped carbons have been studied for many years as cheap and efficient materials for this reaction thank to their specific properties imparted to the graphene plane by both heteroatom nature and by synergistic interaction between heteroatoms and carbon. In this work, we present some ORR results about cheap, easy-synthesized materials based on a metal modified- N/S co-doped carbon. These carbons have been characterized by physico-chemical methods: X-Ray Powder Diffraction, X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, Micro-Raman Spectroscopy, BET analysis, Scanning Electron Microscopy. A deep electrochemical study has been performed by using Rotating Disk- and Rotating Ring Disk Electrode. A correlation between nitrogen, sulphur amount, nature of carbon precursor, nature of metal, chemical nature of heteroatom on the surface and electrocatalytic properties will be presented. Results are very promising. The activity of some materials is better than that of the most used electrocatalyst based on Pt. Preliminary results about MeOH tolerance of some of them will be also presented.