Fluoropyridine-medicated zeolite templating method for N/F co-doped carbon with high electrocatalytic performance on oxygen reduction reaction

Heteroatom-doped carbons have attracted increasing attention in recent years as inexpensive high-performance electrocatalytic materials owing to their electrical properties. A precisely controlled synthesis method for heteroatom-doped carbons is important to improve their performance and expand their applications. In this study, we developed a fluoropyridine-medicated zeolite templating method for Nitrogen/Fluorine (N/F) co-doped carbons. The N/F co-doped carbons showed better catalytic performances for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) than N-doped carbon prepared using pyridine. In particular, the optimized N/F co-doped carbon exhibited a higher half-wave potential (0.87 V vs. RHE) than commercial Pt-loaded carbon black and N/F co-doped carbons reported in the literature. The comparative studies using various N/F co-doped carbons revealed that semi-ionic bonded C-F might improve ORR activity. In contrast, the contribution from covalent or ionic C-F to improving ORR activity would be negligible.