Highly active N‐doped non‐precious transition metal Fe@ <scp>N–C</scp> catalysts for efficient oxygen reduction reaction in microbial fuel cells
Yanyan Cui, Nan Jiang, Shunjie Shi, Chao Jia, Bolong Jiang
Abstract
In this study, highly active and stable N-doped porous carbon Fe(x)@N–C (x stands for the Fe/terephthalic acid molar ratio) catalysts were prepared from MIL-53(Fe) using inexpensive acetonitrile as N source and their electrochemical performances were also tested. The Fe(x)@N–C showed mainly zero-valent iron phase with small amount of Fe3C phase. Among all the prepared composites, Fe(0.3)@N–C possessed the largest surface area and pore volume, and largest number of Fe–Nx active sites. The MFC with Fe(0.3)@N–C presented the greatest open voltage of 0.60 V among Fe(x)@N–C, which is closer to the MFC with Pt/C (0.61 V). The power density of Fe(0.3)@N–C in MFC was 604.6 mW·m−2. The MFC output voltage of Fe(0.3)@N–C was stabilized at 0.58 ± 0.01 V and maintained at this value for 75 days. The Fe(0.3)@N–C had comparable MFC output voltage as Pt/C and possessed much superior stability to Pt/C, showing a great potential for industrial application in MFC.