The Use of an Edible Mushroom-Derived Renewable Carbon Material as a Highly Stable Electrocatalyst towards Four-Electron Oxygen Reduction

Materials

Chaozhong Guo²  Lingtao Sun²  Wenli Liao¹  Zhongbin Li¹ 

[1] College of Materials and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences, Yongchuan 402160, Chongqing, China;Research Institute for New Materials Technology, Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences, Yongchuan 402160, Chongqing, China;

关键词: enoki mushroom;    electrocatalyst;    oxygen reduction;    carbon material;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ma9010001

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The development of highly stable and efficient electrocatalysts for sluggish oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is exceedingly significant for the commercialization of fuel cells but remains a challenge. We here synthesize a new nitrogen-doped biocarbon composite material (N-BC@CNP-900) as a nitrogen-containing carbon-based electrocatalyst for the ORR via facile all-solid-state multi-step pyrolysis of bioprotein-enriched enoki mushroom as a starting material, and inexpensive carbon nanoparticles as the inserting matrix and conducting agent at controlled temperatures. Results show that the N-BC@CNP-900 catalyst exhibits the best ORR electrocatalytic activity with an onset potential of 0.94 V (versus reversible hydrogen electrode, RHE) and high stability. Meanwhile, this catalyst significantly exhibits good selectivity of the four-electron reaction pathway in an alkaline electrolyte. It is notable that pyridinic- and graphtic-nitrogen groups that play a key role in the enhancement of the ORR activity may be the catalytically active structures for the ORR. We further propose that the pyridinic-nitrogen species can mainly stabilize the ORR activity and the graphitic-nitrogen species can largely enhance the ORR activity. Besides, the addition of carbon support also plays an important role in the pyrolysis process, promoting the ORR electrocatalytic activity.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.