3D Hierarchical Pt-Nitrogen-Doped-Graphene-Carbonized Commercially Available Sponge as a Superior Electrocatalyst for Low-Temperature Fuel Cells.

Three-dimensional hierarchical nitrogen-doped graphene (3D-NG) frameworks were successfully fabricated through a feasible solution dip-coating method with commercially available sponges as the initial backbone. A spongy template can help hinder the graphene plates restacking in the period of the annealing process. The Pt/3D-NG catalyst was synthesized employing a polyol reduction process. The resultant Pt/3D-NG exhibits 2.3 times higher activity for methanol electro-oxidation along with the improvement in stability as compared with Pt/G owing to their favorable features including large specific surface area, high pore volume, high N doping level, and the homogeneous dispersion of Pt nanoparticles. Besides, Pt/3D-NG also presents high oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) performance in acid media when compared with Pt/3D-G and Pt/G. This work raises a valid solution for the fabrication of 3D functional freestanding graphene-based composites for a variety of applications in fuel cell catalysis, energy storage, and conversion.