Biowaste-Derived Highly Porous N-Doped Carbon as a Low-Cost Bifunctional Electrocatalyst for Hybrid Sodium-Air Batteries

Murugesan, C and Senthilkumar, B and Barpanda, P (2022) Biowaste-Derived Highly Porous N-Doped Carbon as a Low-Cost Bifunctional Electrocatalyst for Hybrid Sodium-Air Batteries. In: ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, 10 (28). pp. 9077-9086.

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Abstract

Noble-metal-free bifunctional catalysts are vital to improve highperformance, cost-effective metal−air batteries. This work presents highly porous carbon (HPC), derived from waste tree leaves, as a low-cost carbon-based bifunctional electrocatalyst. To further improve the catalytic activity, nitrogen and sulfur doping in HPC is achieved by treating it with urea (CO(NH2)2) and thiourea (CS(NH2)2), respectively. The electrocatalytic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity of the HPC, N-doped HPC, and S-doped HPC have been investigated. Among them, the N-doped HPC was found to show excellent bifunctional electrocatalytic (ORR/OER) activity. The N-doped HPC exhibited a superior bifunctional catalytic activity with an onset potential of 0.95 V (vs RHE) at a current density of 6.31 mA cm−2, whereas in the case of the OER, the observed onset potential was 1.4 V (vs RHE), which is comparable to that of the benchmark RuO2 (1.45 V vs RHE) catalyst. The assembled hybrid Na−air battery exhibited reversible electrochemical performance with a round-trip efficiency of ∼83% over 30 cycles. These economical bifunctional HPC-based catalysts can be effectively employed as air cathodes in hybrid sodium−air battery applications.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering
Publisher:	American Chemical Society
Additional Information:	The copyright for this article belongs to the American Chemical Society.
Keywords:	Carbon; Catalyst activity; Cost effectiveness; Electrocatalysts; Electrolytic reduction; Oxygen; Porous materials; Precious metals; Ruthenium compounds; Sodium compounds; Urea; Zinc air batteries, Bi-functional; Bifunctional electrocatalysts; Biowastes; Electrocatalytic oxygen reduction; Highly porous carbon; Hybrid na-air battery; Low-costs; N-doped; N/S doping; Porous carbons, Doping (additives)
Department/Centre:	Division of Chemical Sciences > Materials Research Centre
Date Deposited:	27 Sep 2022 07:27
Last Modified:	27 Sep 2022 07:27
URI:	https://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/77204

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