Biomass-derived N-doped porous activated carbon as a high-performance and cost-effective pH-universal oxygen reduction catalyst in fuel cell

Abstract

Nitrogen (N) doped porous activated carbons (TGC-T) derived from tofu gel are prepared through a facile, economic and eco-friendly method. The as-prepared TGC-900 possesses high specific surface area (651.78 m2 g−1) and homogeneous doping N (Content of N: 5.52 at.%). Reasonably, TGC-900 exhibits excellent oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity, stability and methanol resistance in neutral, alkaline and acidic medium. Moreover, TGC-900 also shows outstanding ORR performance in the application of microbial fuel cell (MFC) with the highest output voltage (544 ± 6 mV) and maximum power density (977 ± 32 mW m−2). Inspiringly, four single-chamber air cathode MFCs (AC-MFCs) in series can drive a light-emitting diode (LED) to work is firstly reported which further provides a more intuitively method to evaluate the performance of generating electricity for MFCs. Thus, the high performance and cost-effective ORR catalyst TGC-900 is expected to apply in the field of fuel cells.