Nonprecious metal catalysts (NPMCs) FeNC are promising alternatives to noble metal Pt as the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalysts for proton‐exchange‐membrane fuel cells. Herein, a new modulation strategy is reported to the active moiety FeN4 via a precise “single‐atom to single‐atom” grafting of a Pt atom onto the Fe center through a bridging oxygen molecule, creating a new active moiety of Pt1O2Fe1N4. The modulated FeNC exhibits remarkably improved ORR stabilities in acidic media. Moreover, it shows unexpectedly high catalytic activities toward oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), with overpotentials of 310 mV for OER in alkaline solution and 60 mV for HER in acidic media at a current density of 10 mA cm−2, outperforming the benchmark RuO2 and comparable with Pt/C(20%), respectively. The enhanced multifunctional electrocatalytic properties are associated with the newly constructed active moiety Pt1O2Fe1N4, which protects Fe sites from harmful species. Density functional theory calculations reveal the synergy in the new active moiety, which promotes the proton adsorption and reduction kinetics. In addition, the grafted Pt1O2 dangling bonds may boost the OER activity. This study paves a new way to improve and extend NPMCs electrocatalytic properties through a precisely single‐atom to single‐atom grafting strategy.
28 August 2017 in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
Ce3+-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG:Ce) nanocrystals were successfully synthesized via a facile sol-gel method. Multiple characterization techniques were employed to study the structure, morphology, composition and photoluminescence properties of YAG:Ce nanophosphors. The YAG:Ce0.0055 sintered at 1030 °C exhibited a typical 5d1-4f1 emission band with the maximum peak located at 525 nm, and owned a short fluorescence lifetime τ1 (~28 ns) and a long fluorescence lifetime τ2 (~94 ns). Calcination temperature and Ce3+ doping concentration have significant effects on the photoluminescence properties of the YAG:Ce nanophosphors. The emission intensity was enhanced as the calcination temperature increased from 830 to 1030 °C, but decreased dramatically with the increase of Ce3+ doping concentration from 0.55 to 5.50 at.% due to the concentration quenching. By optimizing the synthesized condition, the strongest photoluminescence emission intensity was achieved at 1030 °C with Ce3+ concentration of 0.55 at.%.
Fe3O4 porous spheres are anchored onto carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to form three-dimension Fe3O4/CNTs nanocomposites, which exhibit remarkable EM microwave absorption performances with RL value of −51 dB at 5.52 GHz and effective bandwidth of 3.9 GHz.
1 April 2019 in International Journal of Hydrogen Energy