Comparative Study of the Carbonisation of CoTMPP by Low Temperature Plasma and Heat Treatment

Abstract

Abstract Low temperature plasma (LTP) treatment of cobalt‐tetramethoxyphenylporphyrin (CoTMPP) has been applied as a promising alternative method to the conventional heat treatment in order to attain highly active catalysts for the electroreduction of oxygen. In this contribution it is shown that CoTMPP can be completely transformed into a carbon matrix by adjusting adequate LTP parameters. The carbonisation process of CoTMPP is investigated at different operation conditions by Raman and IR spectroscopy and compared with the structural features of the heat‐treated samples. As a result it appears that the LTP occurs via a different carbonisation process, which yields in a more homogeneously defined molecular carbon structure. magnified image