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A Facile and Versatile Electrochemical Tuning of Graphene for Oxygen Reduction Reaction in Acidic, Neutral and Alkali media
Author(s) -
Manju Venkatesan,
Rao Vusa Chiranjeevi Srinivasa,
Arumugam Palaniappan,
Berchmans Sheela
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
chemistryselect
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 34
ISSN - 2365-6549
DOI - 10.1002/slct.201701039
Subject(s) - tafel equation , electrocatalyst , graphene , electrochemistry , inorganic chemistry , catalysis , nitrogen , materials science , chemistry , metal , chemical engineering , nanotechnology , electrode , organic chemistry , engineering
The need for the development of metal‐free electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) has become a necessity to circumvent the prohibitive cost of Pt and the shortcomings of Pt‐based catalysts. Herein, for the first time, graphene surface was tuned by a simple, room temperature, and easily adaptable electrochemical approach using ammonium carbamate as a nitrogen precursor. This method efficiently tuned the graphene surface by incorporating nitrogen and nitrogen functionalities with an unprecedented content of nitrogen (22.48%). The surface tuned graphene (N−Gr) acts as an efficient metal‐free electrocatalyst towards oxygen reduction reaction in a wide pH range, i. e. from neutral (pH 7) to alkaline (pH 14). Also, the N−Gr exhibits a similar Tafel slope (76 mV/dec) to that of Pt/C (64 mV/dec) in 0.1 M KOH. Long term stability and better tolerance to fuel are the other advantages of the N−Gr. The observed ORR activity of the N−Gr might be due to the higher content of nitrogen which provides higher active sites to promote electron transfer in ORR. All these confirm that the surface tuned graphene can be a suitable electrocatalyst for fuel cell applications and the electrochemical approach may pave a way to develop a set of novel and efficient electrocatalysts using the other graphitic nanocarbons.