Compositing Fullerene-Derived Porous Carbon Fibers with Reduced Graphene Oxide for Enhanced ORR Catalytic Performance

Zhimin He,Xing Lu,Kun Guo,Ziqian Guo,Takeshi Akasaka

doi:10.3390/c8010013

Zhimin He, Xing Lu + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/c8010013

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Abstract

Compositing all-carbon materials with distinct dimensions and structures has demonstrated the great potential to bring synergistic promotion to individual components for the electrocatalytic activity of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Fullerene-derived porous carbon fibers (FPCFs) offer unique one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures with abundant defects and a large specific surface area while graphene features two-dimensional (2D) nanostructures with fast electron transfer. Both carbon materials are promising alternatives to Pt-based electrocatalysts for ORR. Herein, a novel hierarchical composite (FPCFs@rGO) composed of FPCFs and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) is constructed by sonication-assisted mixing and high-temperature pyrolysis. When tested as an electrocatalyst for ORR, the 1D/2D FPCFs@rGO composite presents significantly enhanced performance compared to each individual component, indicating an eminent synergistic effect between FPCFs and rGO. The improved ORR performance of FPCFs@rGO is attributed to the unique hierarchical structure with abundant structural defects, a large specific surface area, and high porosity.

Highlights

Academic Editors: LokOxygen reduction reaction (ORR) requires efficient electrocatalysts due to its sluggish kinetics and high overpotential [1,2]
Fullerene-derived porous carbon fibers (FPCFs)@reduced graphene oxide (rGO) displays negligible decay on the current density after the methanol addition while the Pt/C catalyst goes through a steep drop, which indicates that FPCFs@rGO holds excellent immunity towards methanol. These results demonstrate that FPCFs@rGO possesses an enhanced catalytic activity, an outstanding stability, and a remarkable methanol tolerance, implying its great potential in energy-related applications
We demonstrated that the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalytic performance of fullerene-derived porous carbon fibers can be significantly improved by compositing with rGO (PCFs@rGO)

Summary

Introduction

Academic Editors: LokOxygen reduction reaction (ORR) requires efficient electrocatalysts due to its sluggish kinetics and high overpotential [1,2]. The great potential of all-carbon materials as high-performance electrocatalysts towards ORR are justified by their facile preparation, high flexibility and conductivity, tunable surface chemistry and architecture, and high earth abundance [4,5,6]. Despite these factors, the ORR performance of metal-free carbon electrocatalysts is still unsatisfactory and strategic enhancement of the catalytic activity of the pristine carbon matrix remains a big challenge. Fullerene molecules are flexible building units to assemble various nanoarchitectures due to the intermolecular π–π interactions [13,14,15] This fascinating merit enables the on-demand fabrication of fullerene structures of sophisticated morphology.

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