Fe3C/Fe, N-codoped porous carbon from petroleum vacuum residual for highly efficient oxygen reduction

The development of earth-abundant electrocatalysts to replace noble metal for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) has attracts tremendous interest. In this work, Fe, N-codoped porous carbon-embedded Fe 3 C nanoparticles (Fe 3 C/Fe, N-PCR) is fabricated from petroleum vacuum residue via a simple template-assisted and subsequent doping-assisted calcination method. The unique hybrid material shows great features: abundant active sites including pyridinic N, Fe N, and Fe 3 C nanoparticles, a relatively large surface area (509.3 m 2  g − 1 ) and 3D interconnected hierarchical porous structure. The Fe 3 C/Fe, N-PCR as an electrocatalyst exhibits remarkable ORR catalytic activity in alkaline medium, with a high onset potential of 1.02 V and half-wave potential of 0.86 V, which surpass commercial Pt/C (20 wt%) by ca. 30 and 20 mV, respectively. Moreover, Fe 3 C/Fe, N-PCR has outstanding long-term stability and tolerance to methanol poisoning, outperforming Pt/C. Combining with the exciting performance, abundant and cheap raw material, and facile synthetic method, Fe 3 C/Fe, N-PCR catalyst has promising future in ORR. This study also provides a new approach for high value utilization of petroleum vacuum residue.