title: In Situ Exfoliated, Edge-Rich, Oxygen-Functionalized Graphene from Carbon Fibers for Oxygen Electrocatalysis.
abstract: Metal-free electrocatalysts have been extensively developed to replace noble metal Pt and RuO2catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in fuel cells or metal-air batteries. These electrocatalysts are usually deposited on a 3D conductive support (e.g., carbon paper or carbon cloth (CC)) to facilitate mass and electron transport. For practical applications, it is desirable to create in situ catalysts on the carbon fiber support to simplify the fabrication process for catalytic electrodes. In this study, the first example of in situ exfoliated, edge-rich, oxygen-functionalized graphene on the surface of carbon fibers using Ar plasma treatment is successfully prepared. Compared to pristine CC, the plasma-etched carbon cloth (P-CC) has a higher specific surface area and an increased number of active sites for OER and ORR. P-CC also displays good intrinsic electron conductivity and excellent mass transport. Theoretical studies show that P-CC has a low overpotential that is comparable to Pt-based catalysts, as a result of both defects and oxygen doping. This study provides a simple and effective approach for producing highly active in situ catalysts on a carbon support for OER and ORR.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Chem/Bio-Sensing and Chemometrics, Provincial Hunan Key Laboratory for Graphene Materials and Devices, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China.
authors.forename: Zhijuan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Department of Chemistry, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203, USA.
authors.forename: Zhenghang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Chem/Bio-Sensing and Chemometrics, Provincial Hunan Key Laboratory for Graphene Materials and Devices, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China.
authors.forename: Yanyong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Chem/Bio-Sensing and Chemometrics, Provincial Hunan Key Laboratory for Graphene Materials and Devices, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China.
authors.forename: Shuo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dou
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Chem/Bio-Sensing and Chemometrics, Provincial Hunan Key Laboratory for Graphene Materials and Devices, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China.
authors.forename: Dafeng
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Chem/Bio-Sensing and Chemometrics, Provincial Hunan Key Laboratory for Graphene Materials and Devices, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China.
authors.forename: Dongdong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Department of Chemistry, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203, USA.|College of Energy, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, China.
authors.forename: Zhenhai
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Chem/Bio-Sensing and Chemometrics, Provincial Hunan Key Laboratory for Graphene Materials and Devices, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China.
authors.forename: Shuangyin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
keywords: electrocatalysts; graphene; metal-free; oxygen evolution reaction; oxygen reduction reaction