Bulk Production of Nonprecious Metal Catalysts from Cheap Starch as Precursor and Their Excellent Electrochemical Activity

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• 作者：Wei-Tang Yao ; Liang Yu ; Peng-Fei Yao ; Kang Wei ; Su-Ling Han ; Ping Chen ; Jin-Song Xie
• 刊名：ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：June 6, 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：4
• 期：6
• 页码：3235-3244
• 全文大小：782K
• 年卷期：0
• ISSN：2168-0485

文摘

Development of a high-performance electrocatalyst for an oxygen reduction reaction with a low-cost bulk production method is crucial for practical applications of metal–air batteries, oxygen sensors, fuel cells, and so on. Here, we developed a bulk production method for nitrogen- and ferrum-doped nanoporous carbon microspheres as a high-performance ORR catalyst. The process involved hydrothermal carbonization of starch with iron ions as catalysts to catalyze the formation of carbon spheres and annealing the carbon spheres in an NH₃ atmosphere. NH₃ was used not only as the nitrogen source to form the N-doped carbon material but also to etch the carbon to produce a nanoporous carbon material, which has high surface area and pore volume. As a highly available, accessible, and recyclable biomass, starch can be used to achieve a cheap electrocatalyst. The proposed approach is simple and scalable. The typical product has excellent activity in alkaline media and high activity in acidic media. The typical product is a competitive substitution for commercial Pt/C in a zinc–air battery. This work proposes a new design strategy for bulk production of the excellent nonprecious metal catalysts from cheap biomass.