Traditional earth-abundant coal as new energy materials to catalyze the oxygen reduction reaction in alkaline solution
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2016

Coal is an earth-abundant energy resource, however, its direct combustion results in serious environmental pollution. Therefore, it becomes important to design value-added products from coal and to maximize its value chain. Herein, brown coal was used to develop non-precious metal catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in fuel cells as green energy conversion systems. The brown coal was first pretreated with different acids, followed by N-doping at 800 degrees C in a stream of NH3. A trace amount of Fe was further added to improve the electrocatalytic performance of the prepared catalyst towards ORR. The prepared coal-derived N-doped carbon further modified with 0.5% Fe exhibited onset potential of 0.92 V vs. RHE at a current density of -0.1 mA cm(-2) and a predominantly 4-electron transfer pathway of oxygen to water in 0.1 M NaOH, which was evaluated by RDE and RRDE. The prepared electrocatalysts were further characterized by elemental analysis, XRD, Raman and XPS. The results suggest that the coal-derived ORR catalyst have convoluted graphitic and amorphous carbon structures. The N-content increased after acid-pretreatment and subsequent functionalization with nitrogen, while it slightly decreased after Fe incorporation apparently due to coordination of Fe with N. ORR activity enhancement after the incorporation of Fe is expected to mainly arise from a synergetic effect involving the interaction of Fe with N groups distributed in the carbon matrix. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

N-doping

fe

nitrogen

ash components

metal-free catalysts

oxygen reduction reaction

sensitized solar-cells

coal

electrolyte fuel-cell

Electrochemistry

fuel cells

iron

carbon-black

xrd analysis

carbon materials

n-c electrocatalysts

Författare

X. X. Chen

University of Science and Technology Liaoning

X. N. Huang

University of Science and Technology Liaoning

T. Wang

Xinjiang University

S. Barwe

Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Kunpeng Xie

Kompetenscentrum katalys

Chalmers, Kemi och kemiteknik, Kemiteknik

Y. U. Kayran

Ruhr-Universität Bochum

D. Wintrich

Ruhr-Universität Bochum

W. Schuhmann

Ruhr-Universität Bochum

J. Masa

Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Electrochimica Acta

0013-4686 (ISSN)

Vol. 211 568-575

Drivkrafter

Hållbar utveckling

Ämneskategorier

Kemiska processer

Kemiteknik

Fundament

Grundläggande vetenskaper

DOI

10.1016/j.electacta.2016.05.137

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2018-03-29