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Application of nitrogen-doped carbon powders as low-cost and durable cathodic catalyst to air-cathode microbial fuel cells

Lookup NU author(s): Senthil Kumar

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Abstract

Given few in-depth studies available on the application of nitrogen-doped carbon powders (NDCP) to air-cathode microbial fuel cells (ACMFCs), a low-cost and durable catalyst of NDCP was prepared and used as cathodic catalyst of ACMFCs. Compared to the untreated carbon powders, the N-doped treatment significantly increased the maximum power density (MPD) of ACMFC. A two-step pretreatment of heat treatment and hydrochloric acid immersion can further obviously increase the MPD. With a reasonably large loading of catalyst, the MPD of NDCP based ACMFC was comparable to that of carbon-supported platinum (Pt/C) based ACMFC, while the cost was dramatically reduced. The pretreatment increased the key nitrogen functional groups, pyridinic-like and pyrrolic-like nitrogen. A third new key nitrogen functional group, nitrogen oxide, was discovered and the mechanism of its contribution was explained. Compared to the inherent deterioration problem of Pt/C. NDCP exhibited high stability and was superior for long-term operation of ACMFCs. (c) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Shi XX, Feng YJ, Wang X, Lee H, Liu J, Qu YP, He WH, Kumar SMS, Ren NQ

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Bioresource Technology

Year: 2012

Volume: 108

Pages: 89-93

Print publication date: 01/03/2012

ISSN (print): 0960-8524

ISSN (electronic): 1873-2976

Publisher: Elsevier BV

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2011.12.078

DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2011.12.078

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