A novel octahedral MnO/RGO composite prepared by thermal decomposition as a noble-metal free electrocatalyst for ORR

• DOI: 10.1007/s10853-017-0901-4
• Publication Date: 2017-02-16T14:50:00Z
• Authors: Qiuling Wu; Meiling Jiang; Xiaofeng Zhang; Jiannan Cai; Shen Lin
• Keywords: 01 natural sciences; 7. Clean energy; 0104 chemical sciences

Octahedral MnO/reduced graphene oxide (RGO) composite was synthesized by thermal decomposition method and characterized by XRD, Raman, XPS, TGA/DSC, TEM and SEM. The analysis results show that GO was reduced to RGO, and the octahedral MnO nanoparticles disperse on the RGO sheet by thermal decomposition process. It is important that the as-prepared composite exhibits excellent electrocatalytic performance for oxygen reduction reaction. The onset potential of the octahedral MnO/RGO composite is about 100 and 200 mV positive-shifted compared with that of MnO and RGO, respectively. The current density of O2 reduction for the MnO/RGO composite is also much higher than that of MnO and RGO, respectively. In addition, the composite shows better stability and tolerance ability toward CH3OH and CO poisoning than that of commercial Pt-based catalyst. The enhanced electrocatalytic performance of octahedral MnO/RGO may make it available to be an efficient and cheap noble-metal free cathodic catalyst for fuel cells and metal–air batteries.