Applied Catalysis B: Environmental 189 (2016) 1–11 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Applied Catalysis B: Environmental journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apcatb A novel sulfur-nitrogen dual doped ordered mesoporous carbon electrocatalyst for efficient oxygen reduction reaction Tingting Jiang a , Yi Wang a,∗ , Kun Wang a , Yeru Liang a , Dingcai Wu a , Panagiotis Tsiakaras b,∗ , Shuqin Song a,∗ a The Key Lab of Low-carbon Chemistry & Energy Conservation of Guangdong Province, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China b Laboratory of Alternative Energy Conversion Systems, Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Thessaly, Pedion Areos, 38834 Volos, Greece a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 30 October 2015 Received in revised form 2 February 2016 Accepted 3 February 2016 Available online 6 February 2016 Keywords: Oxygen reduction reaction S-N doped ordered mesoporous carbon Electrocatalytic activity Methanol tolerance Stability a b s t r a c t Despite nitrogen doped carbon (N C) materials as metal-free electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reac- tion (ORR) have shown desirable performance, the state-of-the-art of N C materials is still far from satisfaction for practical fuel cell applications. In the present work, sulfur (S) and nitrogen (N) dual doped ordered mesoporous carbon (SN-OMC) materials are for the first time successfully obtained by the aid of a convenient method under the same conditions, using polythiophene (PTh) and polypyrrole (PPy) as the precursors, ordered mesoporous silica (SBA-15) as the hard template, and FeCl 3 as the catalyst. The prepa- ration conditions of the adopted method are gentle and easy to control and regulate. The experimental results have demonstrated that the obtained materials possess high ordering degree, large specific sur- face area and adjustable sulfur and nitrogen contents. It is found that the S 1 N 5 -OMC (the PTh/PPy feeding volume ratio is 0.5:2.5) exhibits excellent ORR electrocatalytic activity in alkaline media with desir- able current density, methanol tolerance and long-term stability. Such excellent performance could be attributed to the synergistic effect between S and N, the high density of catalytic sites for ORR provided by high S-N heteroatoms loading, and the excellent mass transfer benefiting from ordered mesoporous pore structure. The present investigation provides a new approach to prepare S and N dual doped mesoporous carbons, which show great potential to be applied as fuel cell cathode electrocatalysts. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction With more and more attention to environmental protection, polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells, which are among the most attractive environmentally friendly energy conversion systems, remain the last decades world-widely an active research topic. Oxy- gen reduction reaction (ORR) is the cathodic reaction in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells and it takes place mainly through the following two mechanisms: (i) An efficient four-electron process to produce H 2 O in acidic solu- tion or OH − in alkaline solution; ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: wangyi76@mail.sysu.edu.cn (Y. Wang), tsiak@uth.gr (P. Tsiakaras), stssssq@mail.sysu.edu.cn (S. Song). (ii) A two-electron process which firstly leads to intermediate H 2 O 2 , and through a further reduction of oxygen leads to H 2 O (O 2 + 2e − → 2O − + 2e − → 2O 2− ). Obviously, the four-electron process is preferred for a high efficiency output of fuel cell. However, it should be noted that, for both ORR mechanisms, the corresponding kinetics is sluggish [1,2]. Currently, Pt with its efficient catalytic activity and full four- electron process is the most widely used ORR electrocatalyst for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells. On the other hand, taking into account its high price and its scarce amount, Pt cannot be con- sidered as the most suitable catalyst for commercial applications [3]. Therefore, a great number of investigations have been devoted to the identification of alternative catalysts (active for ORR and cheaper than Pt) to decrease or even avoid the usage of Pt, i.e. low Pt or Pt-free catalysts [4–6]. Carbon materials have been adopted as the electrocatalyst sup- port for many years because of their high electrical conductivity, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apcatb.2016.02.009 0926-3373/© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.