An active oxygen reduction electrocatalyst derived from bio-inspired tannic acid-Fe assembly

Metal and nitrogen co-doped carbon material is the most promising candidate for the next generation oxygen reduction reaction catalyst. Despite recent efforts in improving the electrochemical performance of the catalysts, facile fabrication of the catalysts with low-cost and green precursors remains challenging. In this paper, we use tannic acid-Fe (III) assembly as the precursor to synthesize efficient oxygen reduction catalyst. By carbonization of the salt templated polymer precursor at 700 °C in ammonia atmosphere for 5 h, the catalyst with controlled N doping is obtained. In addition, the catalyst has a large surface area that benefits the exposure of catalytic active sites. The combination of these merits endows the catalyst with excellent catalytic activity that is similar to commercial Pt/C catalyst. Our results show that the tannic acid-based polymer could be used as a versatile precursor for controlled synthesis of different functional carbon materials.