Technology Outline (Process Description)

The core objective is to synthesise the porous electrocatalysts containing N-C-B and N2-C-B type sites for the oxygen reduction applications in fuel cell cathodes and metal-air batteries. The thermal annealing of the boron, nitrogen with carbon precursors leads to the boron & nitrogen-doped boron carbon nitrides with various synthetic protocols leads to the formation of B-C-N ac- tive sites. The B-C-N active sites improve the ORR activity via the 4-electron pathway. The direct reduction of oxygen to water via 4-electron pathway can be rationalized by the bridge binding modes of oxygen on carbon and boron active sites. We have reported the improved ORR activity via the 4-electron pathway. Besides the incorporation of iron during the synthesis leads to the introduction of pores and defects in the carbon materials for the effective ORR. The BCN materials on the zinc-air battery shows the highest power density of 191 mWcm^-2 with the specific capacity of 930 mAhg^-1 at 20 mAcm^-2 discharge current density. The synthesis of well-defined B-C-N active sites COF materials is under progress.