title: Application of nitrogen-doped carbon powders as low-cost and durable cathodic catalyst to air-cathode microbial fuel cells.
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.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, 73 Huanghe Road, Nangang District, Harbin 150090, China.
authors.forename: Xinxin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Yujie
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: He
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Jia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Youpeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qu
authors.forename: Weihua
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: S M Senthil
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: Nanqi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ren
mesh_terms: D001674:Bioelectric Energy Sources; D002244:Carbon / Q000737:chemistry*; D002384:Catalysis; D004566:Electrodes; D006358:Hot Temperature; D006851:Hydrochloric Acid; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D002244:Carbon; D009584:Nitrogen; D006851:Hydrochloric Acid