MOF Templated Nitrogen Doped Carbon Stabilized Pt–Co Bimetallic Nanoparticles: Low Pt Content and Robust Activity toward Electrocatalytic Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Platinum (Pt) based materials are widely used in electrocatalytic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) with excellent catalytic activity, but its low abundance and expensive nature impede the broaden application. Alloying Pt with 3d transition metals is a good choice to reduce the Pt content but not decrease its ORR activity. Herein, a nitrogen-doped carbon stabilized Pt–Co bimetallic nanoparticles (Pt–Co/NC) with very low Pt content (0.51 wt %) was facilely synthesized through a metal–organic framwork (MOF) templated approach. The as-synthesized Pt–Co/NC shows favorable ORR catalytic activity with 0.87 V of half-wave potential, higher than many benchmark 20% Pt/C and a lot of previouely reported Pt containing ORR catalysts with high Pt content. Particularly, unlike conventional Pt based ORR catalysts, the Pt–Co/NC presents favorable methanol tolerance. This work provides a new method to prepare cost-effective and multifunctional catalysts using N-containing MOF template.