Electrocatalytic activity of nitrogen-doped carbon nanotube cups

Yifan Tang; Brett L Allen; Douglas R Kauffman; Alexander Star

doi:10.1021/ja904595t

Electrocatalytic activity of nitrogen-doped carbon nanotube cups

J Am Chem Soc. 2009 Sep 23;131(37):13200-1. doi: 10.1021/ja904595t.

Authors

Yifan Tang¹, Brett L Allen, Douglas R Kauffman, Alexander Star

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemistry, University of Pittsburgh and the National Energy Technology Laboratory, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA.

PMID: 19722487
DOI: 10.1021/ja904595t

Abstract

The electrochemical activity of stacked nitrogen-doped carbon nanotube cups (NCNCs) has been explored in comparison to commercial Pt-decorated carbon nanotubes. The nanocup catalyst has demonstrated comparable performance to that of Pt catalyst in oxygen reduction reaction. In addition to effectively catalyzing O(2) reduction, the NCNC electrodes have been used for H(2)O(2) oxidation and consequently for glucose detection when NCNCs were functionalized with glucose oxidase (GOx). Creating the catalysts entirely free of precious metals is of great importance for low-cost fuel cells and biosensors.