title: Transforming waste biomass with an intrinsically porous network structure into porous nitrogen-doped graphene for highly efficient oxygen reduction.
abstract: Porous nitrogen-doped graphene with a very high surface area (1152 m(2) g(-1)) is synthesized by a novel strategy using intrinsically porous biomass (soybean shells) as a carbon and nitrogen source via calcination and KOH activation. To redouble the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity by tuning the doped-nitrogen content and type, ammonia (NH3) is injected during thermal treatment. Interestingly, this biomass-derived graphene catalyst exhibits the unique properties of mesoporosity and high pyridine-nitrogen content, which contribute to the excellent oxygen reduction performance. As a result, the onset and half-wave potentials of the new metal-free non-platinum catalyst reach -0.009 V and -0.202 V (vs. SCE), respectively, which is very close to the catalytic activity of the commercial Pt/C catalyst in alkaline media. Moreover, our catalyst has a higher ORR stability and stronger CO and CH3OH tolerance than Pt/C in alkaline media. Importantly, in acidic media, the catalyst also exhibits good ORR performance and higher ORR stability compared to Pt/C.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China. msc@whut.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Huang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Ibrahim Saana
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Amiinu
authors.forename: Chenyu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Xiaobo
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Wenmao
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Tu
authors.forename: Mu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.forename: Shichun
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mu
mesh_terms: D018533:Biomass; D006108:Graphite / Q000737:chemistry*; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000737:chemistry*; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction; D010100:Oxygen / Q000737:chemistry*; D016062:Porosity
chemical_list: D006108:Graphite; D009584:Nitrogen; D010100:Oxygen