Biomass-derived N-doped carbon and its application in electrocatalysis

The economical, green and sustainable preparation of functional carbon materials is of interest for energy storage and conversion technology. Herein, a functional N-doped carbon material (NC) was obtained from green biomass and cheap carbon black. The as-prepared NC enables the formation of highly-dispersed Pt nanocatalyst. Interestingly, compared to a state-of-the-art commercial Pt/C catalyst, the as-prepared Pt/NC catalyst shows a superior electrocatalytic performance with a 1.4-fold improvement in mass activity and a 1.5-fold enhancement in stability for methanol electrooxidation reaction. Thus, the green and earth-abundant biomass materials exhibit the promise in designing and producing functional carbon materials for high-performance electrochemical devices. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.