Reverse Microemulsion Synthesis of Mesopore Phloroglucinol‐Resorcinol‐Formaldehyde Carbon Aerogel Microsphere as Nano‐Platinum Catalyst Support for ORR

Abstract Carbon aerogel (CA) microspheres are modified CA materials that can be prepared by reverse microemulsion and ambient pressure drying and without solvent exchanged. However, mesopore size of traditional resorcinol‐formaldehyde (RF) carbon aerogel microsphere is too small (3‐5 nm) to support nano‐platinum catalyst. In this study, we utilize reverse microemulsion polymerization and ambient pressure drying to develop a series of phloroglucinol‐resorcinol‐formaldehyde (PRF) carbon aerogel microspheres. These carbon aerogel microspheres possess large mesopore size (10–30 nm) and high specific surface area (1300–2000 m 2 g −1 ). Compared with commercial Pt/C, the PRF carbon aerogel as nano‐platinum catalyst support shows the better and durable catalytic activity. The initial mass and electrochemical active surface area of the best performance of Pt/CA are 2.9 and 2.8 times higher than that of commercial Pt/C respectively. After the accelerated stability test (ADT), Pt/CA still keeps a mass and electrochemical active surface area up to 0.15 A mg −1 and 86.4 m 2 g −1 , while the commercial Pt/C lost to 0.02 A mg −1 and 42.8 m 2 g −1 . The stability of Pt/CA shows about 7.5 times enhancements compared to commercial Pt/C.