Pyrolysis of a flash nanoprecipitated tannic acid–metal@polymer assembly to create an electrochemically active metal@nanocarbon catalyst

Herein, hydrophobic tannic acid–iron (TA–Fe) coordination composites were encapsulated within polystyrene-copolyacrylonitrile (PS-c-PAN) nanospheres using the flash nanoprecipitation (FNP) technique. Carbon materials with uniform and dense distributions of metal NPs were obtained after carbonization under the protection and confinement of the polymer matrix. The as-prepared Fe and nitrogen codoped carbon materials exhibited enhanced electrocatalytic performance in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). In addition, the catalytic ability of the carbon/metal composites could be affected by tuning the morphology and composition.