Fe-ZIF8 Coating Cu Foil Derived Carbon as A pH-Universal Electrocatalyst for Efficient Oxygen Reduction Reaction

It is a great challenge to fabricate highly efficient pH-universal electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Herein, a facile strategy, which includes coating the Fe modified ZIF8 on Cu foil and in situ pyrolysis to evaporate and dope Cu into the MOF derived carbon, is developed to fabricate Fe/Cu-N co-doped carbon material (Cu/Fe-NC). Profiting from the modulated electron distribution and textual properties, well-designed Cu/Fe-NC exhibits superior half-wave potential (E_1/2 ) of 0.923 V in alkaline, 0.757 V in neutral and comparable 0.801 V in acid electrolytes, respectively. Furthermore, the ultralow peroxides yield of ORR demonstrates the high selectivity of Cu/Fe-NC in full pH scale electrolytes. As expected, the self-made alkaline and neutral zinc-air batteries equipped with Cu/Fe-NC cathode display excellent discharge voltages, outstanding peak power densities and remarkable stability. This work opens a new way to fabricate highly efficient and pH-universal electrocatalysts for ORR through strategy of Fe/Cu-N co-doping, Cu foil evaporation and carbon defects capture.