Electrochemical Oxygen Reduction Reaction Performance Boosted by N, P Doped Carbon Layer over Manganese Dioxide Nanorod

Abstract

Abstract Herein, heteroatoms of N and P doped carbon layer over MnO 2 nanorods surface was fabricated by an in situ anile polymerization reaction based on aniline and phytic acid (MnO 2 @PANI) following thermal annealing. A core‐shell structure with manganese oxide as the core and N, P‐doped carbon layer as the shell was revealed by structure and morphology analysis. Temperature dependence of phase structure and ORR activity was found by a series of physical and electrochemical studies for MnO 2 @PANI sample obtained at different annealing temperatures. The MnO 2 @PANI obtained at 800 °C exhibited the best catalytic performance, close to Pt/C for ORR; Specifically, the onset potential and half‐wave potential were 0.92 and 0.76 V respectively, outperforming their counterparts of MnO 2 and N, P−C alone. The improved catalytic performance can be attributed to the conductivity improvement and the synergistic effect of the intrinsic activity of manganese oxide and N, P‐doped carbon layer. The current work demonstrated an efficient approach to boost the catalytic performance for ORR catalyzed by manganese oxide.