Sewage sludge-derived Fe- and N-containing porous carbon as efficient support for Pt catalyst with superior activity towards methanol electrooxidation

Abstract

In this work, a facile Fe- and N-containing porous carbon derived from sewage sludge was prepared and served as the support of Pt nanoparticles for the electrooxidation of methanol. Both the sludge-derived carbon (denoted as SC) and the resultant Pt/SC catalyst was physically characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The electrocatalytic performance for methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) of the Pt/SC was examined by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronoamperometric method. The results showed that the Pt/SC possessed slightly larger Pt particle size (5.5 nm) and lower electrochemical active surface area (ECA) compared to common Pt/C catalyst. However, the mass activity of Pt/SC for MOR was up to 201 mA mg−1, which was much higher than that of Pt/C (93 mA mg−1), indicating the synergistic effect of the sewage sludge-derived carbon with Fe and N species on methanol electrooxidation. Furthermore, Pt/SC showed enhanced durability towards MOR compared to common Pt/C, implying its potential for using in direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) for energy conversion, which also demonstrated a promising solution for the utilization of sewage sludge resources.