Engineering carbon semi-tubes supported platinum catalyst for efficient oxygen reduction electrocatalysis

Innovation of catalyst structure is extremely important to develop the high-per-formance electrocatalysts for oxygen-reduction reaction (ORR). Herein, nitro-gen-doped carbon semi-tube (N-CST) is used as a functional support for stabiliz-ing the microwave-reduced Pt nanoparticles with an average size of -2.8 nm to synthesize the semi-tubular Pt/N-CST catalyst. The contribution of interfacial Pt-N bond between N-CST support and Pt nanoparticles with electrons transfer from N-CST support to Pt nanoparticles is found by electron paramagnetic reso-nance (EPR) and X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy. This bridged Pt-N coordination can simultaneously help ORR electrocatalysis and pro-mote electrochemical stability. As a result, the innovative Pt/N-CST catalyst ex-hibits excellent catalytic performance, realizing ORR activity and electrochemical stability superior to the commercial Pt/C catalyst. Furthermore, density func-tional theoretical (DFT) calculations suggest that the interfacial Pt-N-C site with unique affinity of O* + OH* can provide new active routes for the enhanced electrocatalytic ORR capacity.