Recent Advances on Non‐precious Metal Porous Carbon‐based Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is a crucial process for several significant energy conversion and storage devices, such as metal‐air batteries and fuel cells. However, the sluggish kinetics caused by huge activation energy barriers limit the performance. Platinum (Pt) and Pt‐based catalysts are still the most efficient catalysts for ORR. Unfortunately, the scarcity, high cost, poor stability, crossover effect and CO poisoning of Pt and Pt‐based materials restrict their further development. Carbon‐based nanomaterials, especially the non‐precious metal porous carbon‐based materials (NPC) have been considered as the most promising replacement for Pt and attract the extensive attention of scientists since its high specific surface area and easy regulation can significantly increase the active sites and mass transfer of electrocatalyst. On the other way, the NPC can also be the support of the single metal atoms which can act as the highly efficient ORR electrocatalysts. This review focuses on the recent progress on the applications of NPC at ORR electrocatalyst field.