ZIF‐8 with Ferrocene Encapsulated: A Promising Precursor to Single‐Atom Fe Embedded Nitrogen‐Doped Carbon as Highly Efficient Catalyst for Oxygen Electroreduction

Abstract The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) plays an important role in the fields of energy storage and conversion technologies, including metal–air batteries and fuel cells. The development of nonprecious metal electrocatalysts with both high ORR activity and durability to replace the currently used costly Pt‐based catalyst is critical and still a major challenge. Herein, a facile and scalable method is reported to prepare ZIF‐8 with single ferrocene molecules trapped within its cavities (Fc@ZIF‐8), which is utilized as precursor to porous single‐atom Fe embedded nitrogen‐doped carbon (Fe–N–C) during high temperature pyrolysis. The catalyst shows a half‐wave potential ( E 1/2 ) of 0.904 V, 67 mV higher than commercial Pt/C catalyst (0.837 V), which is among the best compared with reported results for ORR. Significant electrochemical properties are attributed to the special configuration of Fc@ZIF‐8 transforming into a highly dispersed iron–nitrogen coordination moieties embedded carbon matrix.