title: High-Performance Carbon Aerogel Air Cathodes for Microbial Fuel Cells.
abstract: Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) can generate electricity from the oxidation of organic substrates using anodic exoelectrogenic bacteria and have great potential for harvesting electric energy from wastewater. Improving oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) performance at a neutral pH is needed for efficient energy production. Here we show a nitrogen doped (≈4 wt%) ionothermal carbon aerogel (NDC) with a high surface area, large pore volume, and hierarchical porosity, with good electrocatalytic properties for ORR in MFCs. The MFCs using NDC air cathodes achieved a high maximum power density of 2300 mW m-2, which was 1.7 times higher than the most commonly used Pt/C air cathodes and also higher than most state-of-the-art ORR catalyst air cathodes. Rotating disk electrode measurements verified the superior electrocatalytic activity of NDC with an efficient four-electron transfer pathway (n=3.9). These findings highlight NDC as a better-performing and cost-efficient catalyst compared with Pt/C, making it highly viable for MFC applications.
authors: State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, P.R.China. zhangxiaoyuan@tsinghua.edu.cn.
authors: Xiaoyuan
authors: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3196-3443
authors: X
authors: Zhang
authors: State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, No. 73 Huanghe Road, Nangang District, Harbin, 150090, P.R.China.
authors: Weihua
authors: W
authors: He
authors: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA.
authors: Rufan
authors: R
authors: Zhang
authors: State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, P.R.China.
authors: Qiuying
authors: Q
authors: Wang
authors: State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, P.R.China.
authors: Peng
authors: P
authors: Liang
authors: State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, P.R.China.
authors: Xia
authors: X
authors: Huang
authors: Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Penn State University, 231Q Sackett Building, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
authors: Bruce E
authors: BE
authors: Logan
authors: Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Am Mühlenberg 1, 14476, Potsdam, Germany. Tim.Fellinger@mpikg.mpg.de.
authors: Tim-Patrick
authors: TP
authors: Fellinger
mesh_terms: D000388:Air; D001674:Bioelectric Energy Sources; D002244:Carbon / Q000737:chemistry*; D002384:Catalysis; D004566:Electrodes; D007700:Kinetics; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction
chemical_list: D002244:Carbon
keywords: air cathode; carbon; catalysis; microbial fuel cells; renewable resources