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Facile Conversion of Radish to Nitrogen‐Doped Mesoporous Carbon as Effective Metal‐Free Oxygen Reduction Electrocatalysts
Author(s) -
Wang Yu,
Jin Xu,
Pan Ying,
Li Jianming,
Guo Ningning,
Wang Runwei
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
chemnanomat
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.947
H-Index - 32
ISSN - 2199-692X
DOI - 10.1002/cnma.201800231
Subject(s) - catalysis , mesoporous material , carbon fibers , oxygen reduction reaction , chemistry , methanol , nitrogen , heteroatom , activated carbon , metal , materials science , chemical engineering , inorganic chemistry , organic chemistry , electrochemistry , electrode , composite number , ring (chemistry) , adsorption , engineering , composite material
An activation step is essential for yielding nitrogen‐doped mesoporous carbon (NMCs) oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalysts from biomass. Though many solely KOH or ZnCl 2 activated carbon materials have been synthesized with fine ORR activity, there a deep discussion of activated‐carbon‐based electrocatalysts obtained from different activation processes is still lacking. In this paper, we systemically compare radish‐derived NMCs that underwent different activation processes, and reveal the relationship between structure and activity of these activated carbons. We showed that though ZnCl 2 is not an effective porogen compared with KOH, owing to a more open pore structure along with effective preservation of nitrogen heteroatoms, ZnCl 2 assisted activated carbon could show significantly improved ORR activity, with an onset potential of 0.91 V (vs. RHE), close to benchmark Pt/C catalysts and even better extended operation stability and stronger tolerance to methanol crossover compared with commercial Pt/C catalysts. Thus we proved that ZnCl 2 assisted activation is better than exclusively self‐activation or KOH assisted activation in preparing biomass‐derived ORR catalysts.