Synergistically enhanced electrocatalytic activity of cerium oxide/manganese tungstate composite for oxygen reduction reaction

Noble metal-free and earth abundant metals were considered as promising candidates for the development of electrocatalysts towards oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) to achieve large-scale practical applications for metal air batteries and fuel cells. Significant problems remain in the synthesis of low-cost electrocatalysts using a simple and scalable technique. Numerous materials are designed to improve the ORR performance. Due to the oxygen storage and releasing capacity as well as the flexible transformation between Ce3+ and 4+, the CeO2 based catalyst plays an essential role in ORR. Thus, in the present work, we synthesized CeO2/MnWO4 via a two-step synthesis route for ORR. The CeO2/MnWO4-2 composite exhibits superior catalytic activity towards ORR than CeO2, CeO2/MnWO4-1 and CeO2/MnWO4-3. The enhanced ORR performance was attributed to the synergistic interaction between CeO2 and MnWO4. Also, this work highlights the boosted performance of CeO2-based materials by interface tuning, and it could pave the way for the development of efficient noble metal free electrocatalysts for energy conversion.