title: Hydrothermal transformation of dried grass into graphitic carbon-based high performance electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction.
abstract: In this work, we present a low cost and environmentally benign hydrothermal method using dried grass as the sole starting material without any synthetic chemicals to directly produce high quality nitrogen-doped carbon nanodot/nanosheet aggregates (N-CNAs), achieving a high yield of 25.2%. The fabricated N-CNAs possess an N/C atomic ratio of 3.41%, consist of three typed of doped N at a ratio of 2.6 (pyridinic):1.7 (pyrrolic):1 (graphitic). The experimental results reveal that for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), the performance of N-CNAs, in terms of electrocatalytic activity, stability and resistance to crossover effects, is better or comparable to the commercial Pt/C electrocatalyst. The theoretical studies further indicate that the doped pyridinic-N plays a key role for N-CNAs' excellent four-electron ORR electrocatalytic activity.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Clean Environment and Energy, Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus, QLD, 4222, Australia.
authors.forename: Haimin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Yun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yibing
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Xiaolu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Porun
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Huagui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Taicheng
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: An
authors.forename: Zhiyong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Huijun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhao
mesh_terms: D002384:Catalysis; D006108:Graphite / Q000737:chemistry*; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction; D010100:Oxygen / Q000737:chemistry*; D056951:Photoelectron Spectroscopy; D006109:Poaceae / Q000737:chemistry*; D017550:Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared
chemical_list: D006108:Graphite; D010100:Oxygen
keywords: carbon-based electrocatalyst; monkey grass; nanodot/nanosheet aggregates; nitrogen doping; oxygen reduction reaction