title: Sulfur and Nitrogen Codoped Carbon Tubes as Bifunctional Metal-Free Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Reduction and Hydrogen Evolution in Acidic Media.
abstract: The technological combination of fuel cells with water electrolysis is an ideal approach to address the problems of growing energy needs and environmental pollution, in which exploring cheap and stable electrocatalysts is the main challenge. Sulfur and nitrogen codoped carbon tubes (SNCTs), prepared by annealing the mixture of amorphous carbonaceous tubes and cysteine, are found to be active bifunctional metal-free electrocatalysts for both oxygen reduction and hydrogen evolution in acidic medium. The optimized SNCT catalyst exhibits a record high onset potential of 851 mV (vs. RHE) for oxygen reduction and concurrent a low overpotential of 76 mV for hydrogen evolution, with superior stability and low cost. The SNCT electrocatalyst could have great potential in proton exchange membrane fuel cells and water splitting devices.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry of MOE and, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, Jiangsu Provincial Laboratory for Nanotechnology, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry of MOE and, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, Jiangsu Provincial Laboratory for Nanotechnology, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, P. R. China. wqchem@nju.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry of MOE and, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, Jiangsu Provincial Laboratory for Nanotechnology, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yufei
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry of MOE and, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, Jiangsu Provincial Laboratory for Nanotechnology, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Zhiqi
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry of MOE and, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, Jiangsu Provincial Laboratory for Nanotechnology, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Lingyu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Du
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry of MOE and, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, Jiangsu Provincial Laboratory for Nanotechnology, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Lijun
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry of MOE and, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, Jiangsu Provincial Laboratory for Nanotechnology, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Xizhang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry of MOE and, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, Jiangsu Provincial Laboratory for Nanotechnology, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, P. R. China. zhenghu@nju.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Hu
keywords: carbon tubes; codoping; electrocatalysis; hydrogen evolution reaction; oxygen reduction reaction