3D interconnected nitrogen-self-doped carbon aerogels as efficient oxygen reduction electrocatalysts derived from biomass gelatin

Haoqi Yang; Shuqing Kou; Zhiyuan Li; Zhiyong Chang; Mi Wang; Zhenning Liu; Guolong Lu

doi:10.1039/c9ra07926b

3D interconnected nitrogen-self-doped carbon aerogels as efficient oxygen reduction electrocatalysts derived from biomass gelatin

RSC Adv. 2019 Dec 4;9(69):40301-40308. doi: 10.1039/c9ra07926b. eCollection 2019 Dec 3.

Authors

Haoqi Yang^{1

2}, Shuqing Kou¹, Zhiyuan Li², Zhiyong Chang², Mi Wang², Zhenning Liu², Guolong Lu²

Affiliations

¹ Roll Forging Research Institute, College of Material Science and Engineering, Jilin University Changchun Jilin Province 130022 P. R. China kousq@jlu.edu.cn.
² Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education), College of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Jilin University Changchun Jilin Province 130022 P. R. China liu_zhenning@jlu.edu.cn Guolonglu@jlu.edu.cn.

Abstract

Development of efficient metal-free electrocatalysts derived from biomass with high activity towards oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) has gained significance attention due to their low manufacturing cost, environmental friendliness and easy large-scale production. Hence, we present a facile method to prepare nitrogen-self-doped carbon aerogels (NSCAs) with a three-dimensional (3D) interconnected porous structure and large surface area. The sample is prepared via high-temperature pyrolysis using gelatin as precursor and sodium chloride (NaCl) as sacrificial template. The obtained NSCA-800 catalyst shows excellent ORR performance in O₂-saturated alkaline electrolyte, which is comparable to a commercial Pt/C catalyst, in terms of its onset potential (0.92 V vs. RHE), half-wave potential (0.77 V vs. RHE), and limited current density (5.31 mA cm^-2). Particularly, the NSCA-800 catalyst exhibits outstanding long-term stability, its ORR kinetic current still retains 95.7% after a continuous 4 h test while that for commercial Pt/C retains just 74.3%. The sustainable biomass gelatin is a promising precursor for the development of carbon materials as effective ORR catalysts.