Fe-N-C oxygen reduction fuel cell catalyst derived from carbendazim: Synthesis, structure, and reactivity

New non-PGM catalysts from the family of Fe-N-C pyrolyzed materials are reported. They are synthesized using a templating silica powder with iron nitrate and carbendazim (CBDZ) precursors (sacrificial support method). The synthesis involves high temperature pyrolysis, followed by etching of the sacrificial support (silica) and obtaining a "self-supported" open frame morphology catalyst. Both the temperature of heat treatment and Fe to CBDZ ratio play a crucial role in the final catalytic activity in oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Prepared materials have extremely high durability in RDE tests, ending up with more than 94% of initial activity (by E_1/2 value) after 10 000 cycles in an oxygen atmosphere, which is the result we report for the first time. Evaluation of these new M-N-C catalysts in a single membrane electrode assembly (MEA) has shown an exceptionally high open circuit voltage (OCV) of 1 V and the world's second best performance with no IR correction. MEA tests have shown high current density of 700 mA cm^-2 at 0.6 V and 120 mA cm^-2 at 0.8 V. In-depth structure-to-property correlation presents an evidence that Fe-N_x centers are the active sites playing a key role in oxygen reduction reaction.