Study on the Performance of Oxygen Reduction Reaction Based on Structural Changes of Carbon Supports in Single-Atom Catalyst Synthesis

: In this study, the influence of different structural characteristics of porous carbon supports with the same phase on the formation and performance of single-atom catalysts was investigated. To confirm the differences in the synthesis of iron single-atom catalysts according to the structural characteristics of porous carbon supports, carbon supports with varying specific surface areas, crystallinity, and pore volumes were used while applying the same synthesis method. The formation of single-atom catalysts on the surface of each carbon support was confirmed through X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), a representative catalytic reaction, was selected as the model reaction to evaluate the performance of the single-atom catalysts synthesized on each carbon support, and the performance was evaluated using the rotating disk electrode (RDE) method. As a result, the carbon support with the highest specific surface area exhibited the best performance. Specifically, the most superior carbon support showed a half-wave potential of 0.88 V in an acidic electrolyte environment. These results demonstrate that the structural characteristics of carbon supports significantly affect the performance of single-atom catalysts and are expected to provide an important research foundation for improving the performance of hydrogen fuel cells in the future.