Catalytically Active Carbon From Cattail Fibers for Electrochemical Reduction Reaction

Yanyan Liu; Meifang Hu; Wei Xu; Xianli Wu; Jianchun Jiang

doi:10.3389/fchem.2019.00786

Catalytically Active Carbon From Cattail Fibers for Electrochemical Reduction Reaction

Front Chem. 2019 Nov 19:7:786. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2019.00786. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Yanyan Liu^{1

2

3}, Meifang Hu³, Wei Xu^{1

2}, Xianli Wu³, Jianchun Jiang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Chemical Industry of Forest Products, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Nanjing, China.
² Key Laboratory of Biomass Energy and Material of Jiangsu Province, Nanjing, China.
³ College of Chemistry, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.

Abstract

Catalytically active carbons derived from plant biomass are conducive to the construction of renewable energy source system and utilization of sustainable resources. In this article, natural cattail fibers are used to fabricate porous nitrogen-doped carbon via direct chemical activation and heteroatom modification treatments. The graphene-like sheets from biomass pyrolysis are assembled into three-dimensional carbon frameworks. The chemical activation of KHCO₃ generated unique porous structure and N-containing molecules pyrolysis modification provided nitrogen doping atoms. High surface area up to 2,345 m²·g ^-1 with simultaneous hierarchical pores (from micro to meso and macro) with abundant edge defects are achieved for these carbon materials. These materials have a very large external surface area up to 1,773 m²·g ^-1. The above strategy exhibits a significant synergistic effect on the improvement of catalytic properties toward hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen reduction reaction. The small over potentials and Tafel slopes of these catalytically active carbons demonstrate excellent potential applications in renewable energy conversion and storage systems. This research established a new link among environmental improvement, biomass conversion and renewable energy utilization.

Keywords: biomass pyrolysis; catalytic active carbon; hierarchical pores; hydrogen evolution reaction (HER); nitrogen-doped carbon; oxygen reduction reaction (ORR).