Sodium chloride-assisted green synthesis of a 3D Fe-N-C hybrid as a highly active electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction

Abstract

To promote the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) on a non-precious-metal catalyst, integrating two-dimensional (2D) nanosheets and one-dimensional (1D) nanotubes in one catalyst is considered as one of the desirable approaches since this hybrid architecture can host more useful active sites and enhance mass/electron transfer. Herein, we demonstrated a sodium chloride-assisted strategy for the in situ synthesis of a three-dimensional (3D) hybrid of carbon nanosheets and nanotubes. The micrometer-scale sodium chloride (NaCl) crystal acted as a recyclable skeleton to adsorb the precursors on its surfaces, which assisted the formation of micrometer-sized graphitic carbon nanosheets with nanometer ..