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Topological Defects in Metal‐Free Nanocarbon for Oxygen Electrocatalysis
Author(s) -
Tang Cheng,
Wang HaoFan,
Chen Xiang,
Li BoQuan,
Hou TingZheng,
Zhang Bingsen,
Zhang Qiang,
Titirici MariaMagdalena,
Wei Fei
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
advanced materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 10.707
H-Index - 527
eISSN - 1521-4095
pISSN - 0935-9648
DOI - 10.1002/adma.201601406
Subject(s) - electrocatalyst , overpotential , bifunctional , materials science , catalysis , carbonization , carbon fibers , graphene , oxygen evolution , nanotechnology , metal , oxygen reduction , topology (electrical circuits) , chemical engineering , electrochemistry , organic chemistry , electrode , chemistry , composite number , composite material , scanning electron microscope , metallurgy , mathematics , combinatorics , engineering
A bifunctional graphene catalyst with abundant topological defects is achieved via the carbonization of natural gelatinized sticky rice to probe the underlying oxygen electrocatalytic mechanism. A nitrogen‐free configuration with adjacent pentagon and heptagon carbon rings is revealed to exhibit the lowest overpotential for both oxygen reduction and evolution catalysis. The versatile synthetic strategy and novel insights on the activity origin facilitate the development of advanced metal‐free carbocatalysts for a wide range of electrocatalytic applications.