Surfactant-Template Preparation of Polyaniline Semi-Tubes for Oxygen Reduction

Abstract

Nitrogen and metal doped nanocarbons derived from polyaniline (PANI) have been widely explored as electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in fuel cells. In this work, we report surfactant-template synthesis of PANI nanostructures and the ORR electrocatalysts derived from them. By using cationic surfactant such as the cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as the template and the negatively charged persulfate ions as the oxidative agent to stimulate the aniline polymerization in the micelles of CTAB, PANI with a unique 1-D semi-tubular structure can be obtained. The semi-tubular structure can be maintained even after high-temperature treatment at 900 °C, which yields materials exhibiting promising ORR activity.

Electrocatalysis in Fuel Cells

“…With the smallest ZIF-8 crystal size (100 nm), the best H2/O2 fuel cell performance of 900 mA cm −2 at 0.5 V was obtained, which was double the value obtained with previous synthesis protocol [11]. Zhang and Chen developed a novel method to prepare Fe-N-C catalysts by using a cationic surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as the template and the negatively charged persulfate ions as the oxidative agent to stimulate the aniline polymerization, resulting in a unique one-dimensional (1D) semi-tubular structure of PANI [12]. On the other hand, SBA-15 was used as the template by Wan et al in the synthesis of nitrogen-doped ordered mesoporous carbon [13].…”

Engineering carbon semi-tubes supported platinum catalyst for efficient oxygen reduction electrocatalysis

“…Typically, N-CST support can be first prepared through a combined polymerization-pyrolysis method as described in our previous studies. 34 , 35 In the polymerization process, the self-assembled one-dimensional micelle of cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) dissolving in the water is acted as the soft-template, and the m -phenylenediamine (mPDA) molecules are used as the N and C sources. Once adding ammonium persulfates (APS), polymerization will occur in acidic condition for growing the CST which is pyrolyzed to obtain N-CST.…”

“…Although carbon-based materials have some shortcomings when used as the supports of Pt-based ORR catalysts, their important roles in achieving practical catalytic performance are obvious due to their high conductivity, large surface area, reasonable pore structure, and mechanical property. 33 Based on our previous explorations for carbon morphology, 34 , 35 this work employs a facile microwave reduction method for synthesizing the semi-tubular Pt-based catalyst. The synthesized N-doped carbon semi-tube (N-CST) support shows strong interaction and anchoring ability with Pt nanoparticles to form high-performance Pt/N-CST catalyst.…”

Three-dimensional porous metal–nitrogen doped carbon nanostructure as a superior non-precious electrocatalyst in oxygen reduction reaction

“…Moreover, the active sites are directly correlated with large specific surface areas of the doped carbon nanostructures. To obtain nanostructures with high specific surface areas, many researches have great attention on developing porous and hollow, 3dimensional nanostructures synthesized by polymer-assisted, nickel foam-derived and silica templating methods, and hydro-gel (or sol-gel) method [23][24][25][26][27]. In particular, among the various synthesis approaches, the porous nanostructures of M-N-C electrocatalysts with high specific surface areas have been intensively studied through spherical silica and polymer template methods [28][29][30].…”