Biomass carbon dual‐doped with iron and nitrogen for high‐performance electrocatalyst in water splitting

Abstract

Energy crisis has become an urgent problem in the world. Hydrogen is a continuous and clean energy, but traditional electrocatalytic materials for water splitting have the shortcomings including high cost and low hydrogen production efficiency. Herein, we prepare a biomass carbon-based electrocatalyst doped with iron and nitrogen. The overpotential of so-obtained CA (abbreviation of "carbon from amaranth") @Fe(1:3)-800 is only 265 mV at 10 mA cm −2 for oxygen evolution reaction (OER), as well as the Tafel slope is 76.7 mV dec −1 , which are much superior to the results of CA-800 (the overpotential is 514 mV and the Tafel slope is 160.2 mV dec −1 ). It shows the positive influences of dual-doping with iron and nitrogen in biomass carbon. Our work opens up a low-cost and green avenue for fabricating high-performance electrocatalyst in hydrogen production field.

Nonprecious bimetallic NiFe ‐layered hydroxide nanosheets as a catalyst for highly efficient electrochemical water splitting

“…The OER parameters obtained for the Ni 1‐x Fe x ‐layered hydroxide catalysts are provided in Table S2 in Data S1. The catalyst exhibits a comparable or even superior performance at a current density of 10 mAcm −2 among other catalysts (Table S1, Data S1), 14,17,21‐40 such as Mn‐Co LDH ultrathin nanosheets (330 mV), 14 hierarchical Cu@CoFe‐LDH (240 mV), 17 Cu(OH) 2 @NiFe‐LDH (283 mV), 21 CoFe‐LDH@CoFe‐Bi (418 mV), 28 Fe 1 Co 1 ‐ONS (308 mV), 29 CoFe‐LDH (300 mV), 30 E‐CoFe‐LDH (300 mV), 31 NiFe‐LDH (346 mV), 32 NiFe‐LDH/CNT (~310 mV), 33 carbon quantum dot/NiFe‐LDH (~235 mV), 34 NiFePO (333.5 mV), 35 porous Co‐Ni hydroxide (235 mV), 36 and hollow Fe 0.5 V 0.5 (292 mV) 37 …”

“…To understand the background of this study, a literature survey of Ni, Co, Fe, and Mo oxide/hydroxide‐based nanomaterials and their complex structures for water‐splitting applications was conducted, the findings from which are presented in Figure 1 and Table S1 in Data S1 23‐40 . Although there have been many reports on the catalytic performance of NiFe‐LDH, developing these electrodes via cost‐effective and facile routes without affecting their performance has attracted great interest.…”

Cobalt on boron‐doped carbon nitride for a novel bifunctional electrocatalyst in zinc‐air batteries

“…6 Recently carbon-based materials have been widely used in the electrochemical field because of their low cost and good electrical conductivity. [7][8][9] Among them, carbon nitride compounds (CN) have attracted attentions depending on their two-dimensional structure and good stability, but seem to have a little electrochemical activity due to few active sites. 10,11 Therefore, it is a general way to introduce heteroatom including transition metal species to modulate the energy gap and speed the electron transfer, thus improving the electrochemical activity.…”

“…Recently carbon‐based materials have been widely used in the electrochemical field because of their low cost and good electrical conductivity 7‐9 . Among them, carbon nitride compounds (CN) have attracted attentions depending on their two‐dimensional structure and good stability, but seem to have a little electrochemical activity due to few active sites 10,11 .…”

Biochar catalyzing polymerization of the volatiles from pyrolysis of poplar wood

“…36 Biochar has been used in gasification or pyrolysis of carbonaceous materials and showed acceptable activity. [37][38][39] Although there has been few studies evaluating the catalytic performances of biochar catalyst for pyrolysis, 25,37 the catalytic mechanism of biochar for catalyzing the conversion of volatiles has not been completely cleared yet. For example, how do the oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen species transfer from the biomass feedstock to the surface of the catalyst and the effects of such transfer on the specifications of the char produced and the biochar catalyst has to be clarified.…”