Regioselective Control of Ultralow Concentrations of Pt Nanoparticles on Zeolite-Templated Carbon for Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Supported electrocatalysts on porous carbons show excellent electrocatalytic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) performance, but there are few works about selectively controlling Pt locations on supports for an ultralow content and excellent properties. Herein, we demonstrated a Pt location-selective strategy using transformative support engineering to reduce the Pt content and tune the ORR performance. The electrocatalyst with the spatial location of Pt nanoparticles both on the outer surface and inside the zeolite-templated carbon (ZTC) supports containing an ultralow Pt content of 0.5 wt % exhibits an optimum mass activity of 1.75 A·mg Pt –1, significantly outperforming the solely located Pt wthin ZTC and the commercial Pt/C electrocatalysts. This work offers insight into the precise placement control of active sites in electrocatalysis and holds promise for the large scale of low-cost ORR electrocatalysts.