ZIF-67 incorporated with carbon derived from pomelo peels: A highly efficient bifunctional catalyst for oxygen reduction/evolution reactions
Developing carbon catalyst materials using natural, abundant and renewable resources as precursors plays an increasingly important role in clean energy generation and environmental protection. In this work, N-doped pomelo-peel-derived carbon (NPC) materials were prepared using a widely available food waste-pomelo peels and melamine. The synthetic NPC exhibits well-defined porosities and a highly doped-N content (e.g. 6.38 at% for NPC-2), therefore affords excellent oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalytic activities in alkaline electrolytes. NPC was further integrated with ZIF-67 to form ZIF-67@NPC hybrids through solvothermal reactions. The hybrid catalysts show substantially enhanced ORR catalytic activities comparable to that of commercial 20 wa Pt/C. Furthermore, the catalysts also exhibit excellent oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalytic activities. Among all prepared ZIF-67@NPC hybrids, the optimal composition with ZIF-67 to NPC ratio of 2:1 exhibits the best ORR and OER bifunctional catalytic performance and the smallest Delta E (E-OER@10 mA cm(-2)-E-ORR@-1 mA cm(-2)) value of 0.79 V. The catalyst also demonstrated desirable 4-electron transfer pathways and superior catalytic stabilities. The Co-N-4 in ZIF-67, electrochemical active surface area, and the strong interactions between ZIF-67 and NPC are attributed as the main contributors to the bifunctional catalytic activities. These factors act synergistically, resulting in substantially enhanced bifunctional catalytic activities and stabilities; consequently, this hybrid catalyst is among the best of the reported bifunctional electrocatalysts and is promising for use in metal-air batteries and fuel cells. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities; USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) - Office of Fuel Cell Technologies (FCTO)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-06CH11357
- OSTI ID:
- 1411034
- Journal Information:
- Applied Catalysis. B, Environmental, Vol. 205, Issue C; ISSN 0926-3373
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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