One-step activation of high-graphitization N-doped porous biomass carbon as advanced catalyst for vanadium redox flow battery

Dixuan Cheng; Mengran Tian; Boyun Wang; Jinliang Zhang; Jiafu Chen; Xiaojian Feng; Zhangxing He; Lei Dai; Ling Wang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2020.03.069

One-step activation of high-graphitization N-doped porous biomass carbon as advanced catalyst for vanadium redox flow battery

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2020 Jul 15:572:216-226. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.03.069. Epub 2020 Mar 25.

Authors

Dixuan Cheng¹, Mengran Tian¹, Boyun Wang¹, Jinliang Zhang¹, Jiafu Chen², Xiaojian Feng¹, Zhangxing He³, Lei Dai⁴, Ling Wang⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemical Engineering, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan 063009, China.
² Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Testing Technology for Manufacturing Process, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China.
³ School of Chemical Engineering, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan 063009, China; Hebei Province Key Laboratory of Photocatalytic and Electrocatalytic Materials for Environment, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan 063009, China. Electronic address: zxhe@ncst.edu.cn.
⁴ School of Chemical Engineering, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan 063009, China; Hebei Province Key Laboratory of Photocatalytic and Electrocatalytic Materials for Environment, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan 063009, China.
⁵ School of Chemical Engineering, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan 063009, China; Hebei Province Key Laboratory of Photocatalytic and Electrocatalytic Materials for Environment, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan 063009, China. Electronic address: tswling@126.com.

PMID: 32244082
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.03.069

Abstract

In this paper, we reported a one-step activation strategy to prepare highly graphitized N-doped porous carbon materials (KDC-FAC) derived from biomass, and adopted ferric ammonium citrate (FAC) as active agent. At high temperature, FAC was decomposed into Fe- and NH₃-based materials, further increasing graphitization degree, introducing N-containing functional groups and forming porous structure. KDC-FAC has superior electrocatalytic activity and stability towards V²⁺/V³⁺ and VO²⁺/VO₂⁺ redox reactions. High graphitization degree can enhance the conductivity of carbon material, and porous structure is conducive to increase reaction area of vanadium redox couples. Moreover, N-containing functional groups are beneficial to improve the electrode wettability and serve as active sites. The single cell tests demonstrate that KDC-FAC modified cell exhibits good adaptability under high current density and superb stability in cycling test. Compared with pristine cell, the energy efficiency of KDC-FAC modified cell is increased by 9% at 150 mA cm^-2. This biomass-derived carbon-based material proposed in our work is expected to be an excellent catalyst for vanadium redox flow battery.

Keywords: Biomass; Catalyst; Ferric ammonium citrate; N-doped porous carbon; Vanadium redox flow battery.