ZnS, Fe, and P co-doped N enriched carbon derived from MOFs as efficient electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction

Abstract Exploring electrocatalysts with low cost and excellent performance for oxygen reduction reaction is still a significant challenge. In this paper, we introduce a novel strategy to fabricate ZnS, Fe, and P co-doped N enriched carbon (ZnFeSP/NC) via the direct carbonization of PVP/ZIF-8 combined with absorption, sulphurization, and phosphorization processes. The as-synthesized ZnFeSP/NC was used as electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). We explored the influence of Fe, S, and P elements on the ORR activity of the catalysts. It can be found that ZnS nanoparticles were formed and attached on the surface of the ZnFeSP/NC nanoparticles. α-Fe and P element were well dispersed on ZnFeSP/NC nanoparticles. Fe, S, and P element can highly enhance the ORR activity of the catalysts. Compared to Zn/NC, ZnFe/NC, and ZnFeS/CN, ZnFeSP/NC shows the optimal ORR performance with the half-wave potential of 0.859 V and a current density of 3.33 mA cm−2 at −0.85 V. Furthermore, ZnFeSP/NC also exhibits excellent long-term operation stability, effectively avoiding any ORR performance decay.