Facile Fabrication of N-Doped Graphene as Efficient Electrocatalyst for Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Abstract

A facile bottom-up method is reported here for the fabrication of N-doped graphene for oxygen reduction. It consists of a two-step calcination strategy and uses α-hydroxy acids (AHAs) as carbon source and melamine as nitrogen source. Three different AHAs, malic acid, tartaric acid, and citric acid, were chosen as the carbon sources. The prepared N-doped graphenes have a typical thin layered structure with a large specific surface area. It was found that the N content in the obtained N-doped graphenes varies from 4.12 to 8.11 at. % depending on the AHAs used. All of the samples showed high performance in oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). The N-doped graphene prepared from citric acid demonstrated the highest electrocatalytic activity, which is comparable to the commercial Pt/C and exhibited good durability, attributing to the high pyridinic N content in the composite.

MnCo2O4 Anchored on Nitrogen‐Doped Carbon Nanomaterials as an Efficient Electrocatalyst for Oxygen Reduction

“…The ratio of intensity of D/G bands (I D /I G ) can give a quantitative estimation of the degree of graphitization ,. The same I D /I G value (0.93) of N−C and MnCo 2 O 4 /N−C catalysts indicates a high degree of graphitization, which is beneficial for improvement of the electrical conductivity …”

Exploring an effective oxygen reduction reaction catalyst via 4e− process based on waved-graphene

“…Due to the lower adsorption energies of O 2 molecule (not shown here) on WGs under flat, 10% and 20% compression, only the WGs under 30%, 40% and 50% compression are considered in the following (presented as p-30, p-40 and p-50, and p represents pure). Previous studies have shown that N-doping of graphene is considered to be an effective method to enhance the ORR performance due to the charge redistribution among surrounding C atoms caused by the higher electro-negative of N atom than C atom [5,[40][41][42]. First, we have calculated the formation energy E f of the N-doped WG under 30%, 40% and 50% compression (presented as N-30, N-40 and N-50, respectively, as shown in Fig.…”

Green‐Synthesized Nitrogen‐Doped Carbon‐Based Aerogels as Environmentally Friendly Catalysts for Oxygen Reduction in Microbial Fuel Cells

“…Cyclic voltammetry measurements were carried out in the potential range 0.2–−0.8 V vs. Ag/AgCl with a 10 mV s −1 scan rate . ORR polarization curves were acquired in 4‐electrode configuration by cathodically scanning the disk electrode from 0.2 V–−0.8 V with a fixed 5 mV s −1 scan rate and 2500 rpm rotation speed; the ring electrode was kept at a fixed 0.2 V potential.…”