The newly developed pouch cells offer a sensitive method to analyse various products of electrocatalytic reactions, especially of the alcohol oxidation reaction.

Highly selective electrooxidation catalysts were synthesized by functionalizing a commercially available reference electrooxidation catalyst (Pt/Vulcan XC 72R) with a coating of the highly hydrophobic porous zeolitic imidazolate framework ZIF-8, an adsorbent with high affinity for the extraction of aliphatic alcohols from water. According to cyclovoltammetric studies in alkaline media at 25 °C, the ZIF-8 functionalized catalyst shows a high selectivity for the electrooxidation of small alcohols such as ethanol and methanol over more hydrophobic alcohols (n-butanol, n-propanol). In contrast, the noncoated reference catalyst (Pt/Vulcan XC 72R) oxidizes all investigated alcohols with comparable current densities. Tafel curves confirm these observations and indicate a limited conversion of long chain alcohols, especially n-butanol, caused by the high affinity of the ZIF-8 for this molecule resulting in significant diffusion limitations.

We developed an upcycling process of polyurethane obtaining porous nitrogen-doped carbon materials that were applied in supercapacitor electrodes. In detail, a mechanochemical solvent-free one-pot synthesis is used and combined with a thermal treatment. Polyurethane is an ideal precursor already containing nitrogen in its backbone, yielding nitrogen-doped porous carbon materials with N content values of 1–8 wt %, high specific surface area values of up to 2150 m2·g−1 (at a N content of 1.6 wt %) and large pore volume values of up to 0.9 cm3·g−1. The materials were tested as electrodes for supercapacitors in aqueous 1 M Li2SO4 electrolyte (100 F·g−1), organic 1 M TEA-BF4 (ACN, 83 F·g−1) and EMIM-BF4 (70 F·g−1).

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