Electrochemical Oxygen Reduction Reaction

In this chapter, the fundamentals of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) including thermodynamics and electrode kinetics are presented. The ORR kinetics including reaction mechanisms catalyzed by different electrode materials and catalysts including Pt, Pt alloys, carbon materials, and nonnoble metal catalysts are discussed based on the literature in terms of both experiment and theoretical approaches. It is emphasized that these fundamentals of ORR are necessary in order to perform the meaningful characterization of catalytic ORR activity using both rotating disk electrode and rotating ring-disk electrode methods.