Enhanced electrocatalytic activity for H2O2 production by the oxygen reduction reaction: Rational control of the structure and composition of multi-walled carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a very useful chemical reagent, but the current industrial methods for its production suffer from serious energy consumption problems. Using high-activity and high-selectivity catalysts to electrocatalyze the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) through a two-electron (2e−) pathway is a very promising route to produce H2O2. In this work, we obtained partially oxidized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with controlled structure and composition by oxidation with concentrated sulfate and potassium permanganate at 40°C for 1 h (O-CNTs-40-1). The outer layers of O-CNTs-40-1 are damaged with defects and oxygen-containing functional groups, while the inner layers are maintained intact. The optimized structure and composition of the partially oxidized MWCNTs ensure that O-CNTs-40-1 possesses both a sufficient number of catalytic sites and good conductivity. The results of rotating ring disk electrode measurements reveal that, among all oxidized MWCNTs, O-CNTs-40-1 shows the greatest improvement in hydrogen peroxide selectivity (from ∼ 30% to ∼ 50%) and electron transfer number (from ∼ 3.4 to ∼ 3.0) compared to those of the raw MWCNTs. The results of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements indicate that both the charge-transfer and intrinsic resistances of O-CNTs-40-1 are lower than those of the raw MWCNTs and of the other oxidized MWCNTs. Finally, direct tests of the H2O2 production confirm the greatly improved catalytic activity of O-CNTs-40-1 relative to that of the raw MWCNTs.