Abstract
This work shows the preparation of carbon nanospheres with a high superficial nitrogen content (7 wt.%), obtained by a simple hydrothermal method, from pyrocatechol and formaldehyde, around which tungsten nanophases have been formed. One of these nanophases is tungsten carbide, whose electro-catalytic behavior in the ORR has been evaluated together with the presence of nitrogen surface groups. Both current and potential kinetic density values improve considerably with the presence of tungsten, despite the significant nitrogen loss detected during the carbonization treatment. However, the synergetic effect that the WC has with other electro-catalytic metals in this reaction cannot be easily evaluated with the nitrogen in these materials, since both contents vary in opposite ways. Nevertheless, all the prepared materials carried out oxygen electro-reduction by a mixed pathway of two and four electrons, showing remarkable electro-catalytic behavior.
Highlights
Published: 14 December 2021Taking into account the energy and environmental crisis that we are suffering from nowadays, there is a growing interest in finding new sources of energy that respect the environment, especially for applications in the transport sector
The results suggest that this composite exhibits efficient electro-catalytic activity, greater durability, and a greater capacity for methanol tolerance in comparison with commercial Pt/C catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in an alkaline medium
The mesopore volume (VMESO ) was calculated from the total pore volume obtained by the the carbon spheres (CS) are non-microporous materials, and the presence of a certain mesoporosity and/or interparticular spaces of the mesoporous order from their adsorption isotherm can be deduced
Summary
Published: 14 December 2021Taking into account the energy and environmental crisis that we are suffering from nowadays, there is a growing interest in finding new sources of energy that respect the environment, especially for applications in the transport sector. Platinum-based electro-catalysts are the most studied, since Pt is the most active metal for the ORR. The increase in the price of platinum and other precious metals, such as Pd or Ir, makes it more difficult to market the devices that contain them. This is the reason why non-precious metal electro-catalysts are more numerous and studied to reduce the costs of fuel cells [8,13,14,15,16,17]
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