Journal
CARBON
Volume 123, Issue -, Pages 481-491Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbon.2017.07.091
Keywords
-
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [51378216, 21577041]
- Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China [2016A030311023]
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, SCUT [2017ZD066]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Bacteria-based biomass is a renewable and sustainable precursor for the synthesis of functional carbon, but tailoring its micro-architecture with favorable features usually relies on the use of external activating/graphitizing chemicals and silica templates. Here, we report that bacteria grown with Fe minerals can be used for the preparation of mesoporous Fe-N-C electrocatalysts without activation agents or templates. The living Fe mineral@bacteria encrustation-derived carbon pyrolyzed at 800 degrees C (Fe@BC-800) displayed outstanding electrochemical activity for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in all-pH media. In alkaline media, the Fe@ BC-800 exhibited an onset potential of 1.01 V with a half-wave potential of 0.85 V; both values are more positive than those exhibited by commercial Pt/C catalysts. In neutral and acidic media, these values were slightly negative but still comparable to those obtained from Pt/C catalysts. The physicochemical characterization results indicate that the resulting high surface area, high conductivity, abundance in Fe-N-C, pyridinic N, and graphitic N moieties, and heteroatom doping explained the superior activity. The microbial fuel cell (MFC) equipped with the newly developed Fe@BC-800 cathode achieved a maximum power density of 1926.7 mW m(-2), an increase of 134.5% relative to that obtained from the Pt/C cathode, indicating the great potential for application in MFCs. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available