A novel hazelnutt bagasse based activated carbon as sodium borohydride methanolysis and electrooxidation catalyst

Abstract

In this study, activated carbon is produced from defatted hazelnut bagasse at different activation conditions. The catalytic activities of activated carbons are evaluated for NaBH4 methanolysis and electrooxidation. These materials are characterized by N2 adsorption-desorption, FTIR, SEM-EDS and XPS and results show that these materials are prepared successfully. N2 adsorption-desorption results reveal that activated carbon (FH3-500) has the highest BET surface area as 548 m2/g, total pore volume as 0.367 cm3/g and micropore volume as 0.205 cm3/g. On the orher hand, as a result of hydrogen production studies, FH3-500 activated carbon catalyst has the highest initial hydrogen production rate compared to other materials. At 50 °C, this metal-free activated carbon catalyst has a high initial hydrogen production rate of 13591.20 mL/min.gcat, which is higher than literature values. Sodium borohydride electrooxidation measurements reveal that FH2-500 also has the highest electrocatalytic activity and stability. Hazelnut pulp-based activated carbons are firstly used as a metal-free catalyst in the methanolysis and electrooxidation of sodium borohydride, and its catalytic activity is good as a metal-free catalyst. The results show that the hazelnut pulp-based activated carbon catalyst is promising as a metal-free catalyst for the methanolysis and electrooxidation of sodium borohydride.