Preparation of Biomass-Based Heteroatom-Doped Porous Carbon and Its Electrochemical Properties

Direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC), as a clean and renewable energy device, can alleviate the problems of energy shortage and environmental pollution. Low-cost and high-performance exploitation of bifunctional catalyst materials is beneficial for promoting the large-scale application of DMFC. Here we have fabricated a biomass-derived nitrogen and phosphorus co-doped porous carbon (CSAN10P-2) prepared by a simple and green approach. The carbon material obtained by pyrolysis of hydrogel precursors formed by sodium alginate, silk and polyaniline showed a high specific surface area of 823.4 m2/g and a nitrogen content of 7.28%. The resulting CSAN10P-2 material exhibits high electro-catalytic activity for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in alkaline solution with E0 (1.10 V) and E1/2 (0.83 V). In addition, it can be used as a good substrate material for platinum particles (NPs). The Pt/CSAN10P-2 catalysts prepared by loading Pt metal showed excellent catalytic performance and high stability in acidic media and also outperformed Pt/C catalysts in all aspects. This procedure introduces a novel concept for making electro-catalysts of fuel cell.