{"doi":"10.1126/science.1168049","title":"Nitrogen-Doped Carbon Nanotube Arrays with High Electrocatalytic Activity for Oxygen Reduction","abstract":"The large-scale practical application of fuel cells will be difficult to realize if the expensive platinum-based electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reactions (ORRs) cannot be replaced by other efficient, low-cost, and stable electrodes. Here, we report that vertically aligned nitrogen-containing carbon nanotubes (VA-NCNTs) can act as a metal-free electrode with a much better electrocatalytic activity, long-term operation stability, and tolerance to crossover effect than platinum for oxygen reduction in alkaline fuel cells. In air-saturated 0.1 molar potassium hydroxide, we observed a steady-state output potential of -80 millivolts and a current density of 4.1 milliamps per square centimeter at -0.22 volts, compared with -85 millivolts and 1.1 milliamps per square centimeter at -0.20 volts for a platinum-carbon electrode. The incorporation of electron-accepting nitrogen atoms in the conjugated nanotube carbon plane appears to impart a relatively high positive charge density on adjacent carbon atoms. This effect, coupled with aligning the NCNTs, provides a four-electron pathway for the ORR on VA-NCNTs with a superb performance.","journal":"Science","year":2009,"id":10964,"datarank":15.942696694099478,"base_score":8.872767529910936,"endowment":8.872767529910936,"self_citation_contribution":1.3309151294866406,"citation_network_contribution":14.611781564612837,"self_endowment_contribution":1.3309151294866406,"citer_contribution":14.611781564612837,"corpus_percentile":91.1,"corpus_rank":1415,"citation_count":7134,"citer_count":174,"citers_with_citation_signal":174,"citers_with_endowment":174,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2009-02-06","authors":[{"id":89227,"name":"Feng Du","orcid":"0000-0003-2646-7963","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":89228,"name":"Zhenhai Xia","orcid":"0000-0002-0881-2906","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":89229,"name":"Michael Durstock","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":89230,"name":"Liming Dai","orcid":"0000-0001-7536-160X","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":89231,"name":"Michael F. Durstock","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":89226,"name":"Kuanping Gong","orcid":"0000-0002-6611-4225","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":34,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-03-01T18:20:47.508186Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}