Abstract
The major technical obstacles in commercialization of microbial fuel cell technology are the sluggish kinetic, high cost, and poor durability of an air cathode electrocatalyst. This research aimed to synthesize the highly active, stable and low cost non-precious metal catalyst to replace the expensive Pt electrocatalyst using a simple, low cost and scalable method. The Fe3C and Fe-N-C catalysts were prepared by direct heating the precursors under autogenic pressure conditions. X-ray diffraction pattern revealed the phase of Fe3C sample was cohenite Fe3C and graphitic carbon, while the phase of Fe-N-C catalyst was only graphitic carbon. The morphology of the synthesized catalysts was a highly porous structure with nanoparticle morphology. The surface area of the Fe3C and the Fe-N-C catalysts was 295 and 377 m2 g-1, respectively. The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity of Fe-N-C catalyst was more active than Fe3C catalyst. The ORR performance of Fe-N-C catalyst exhibited about 1.6 times more superior to that of the noble Pt/C catalyst. In addition, the Fe-N-C catalyst was durable to operate under neutral media. Thus, a novel autogenic pressure technique was a promising method to effectively prepare an highly active and durable non-precious metal catalyst to replace the precious Pt/C catalyst.
Highlights
Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) is a bio-electrochemical device directly extracting electrical energy during wastewater purification process [1,2,3]
The fact that the precious platinum nanoparticles supported on carbon (Pt/C) has been widely investigated as the most active oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalyst for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells operated under acidic and alkaline environments [3]
Significant research has been focused on the development of highly active and durable non-precious ORR catalyst to replace the expensive Pt catalyst and to improve the MFC performance as well [1,2,3]
Summary
Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) is a bio-electrochemical device directly extracting electrical energy during wastewater purification process [1,2,3]. MFC is suitably operated under the pH range of 6 - 8 and at room temperature due to the optimum condition of the bio-bacterial catalyst [2]. The surface of Pt electrocatalyst is deactivated by the poison of the contaminant from the wastewater, resulting in noticeable decrease of the air cathode activity, deteriorating the MFC efficiency [3]. For this reason, significant research has been focused on the development of highly active and durable non-precious ORR catalyst to replace the expensive Pt catalyst and to improve the MFC performance as well [1,2,3]
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