High-Performance Carbon Aerogel Air Cathodes for Microbial Fuel Cells
Type
ArticleAuthors
Zhang, Xiaoyuan
He, Weihua

Zhang, Rufan
Wang, Qiuying
Liang, Peng
Huang, Xia
Logan, Bruce E.
Fellinger, Tim-Patrick
KAUST Grant Number
KUS-I1-003-13Date
2016-08-11Online Publication Date
2016-08-11Print Publication Date
2016-10-06Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/623553
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) can generate electricity from the oxidation of organic substrates using anodic exoelectrogenic bacteria and have great potential for harvesting electric energy from wastewater. Improving oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) performance at a neutral pH is needed for efficient energy production. Here we show a nitrogen doped (≈4 wt%) ionothermal carbon aerogel (NDC) with a high surface area, large pore volume, and hierarchical porosity, with good electrocatalytic properties for ORR in MFCs. The MFCs using NDC air cathodes achieved a high maximum power density of 2300 mW m−2, which was 1.7 times higher than the most commonly used Pt/C air cathodes and also higher than most state-of-the-art ORR catalyst air cathodes. Rotating disk electrode measurements verified the superior electrocatalytic activity of NDC with an efficient four-electron transfer pathway (n=3.9). These findings highlight NDC as a better-performing and cost-efficient catalyst compared with Pt/C, making it highly viable for MFC applications.Citation
Zhang X, He W, Zhang R, Wang Q, Liang P, et al. (2016) High-Performance Carbon Aerogel Air Cathodes for Microbial Fuel Cells. ChemSusChem 9: 2788–2795. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cssc.201600590.Sponsors
This research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51408336), the International Program of MOST (Grant No. 2013DFG92240), National Key Research and Development Program (Grant No. 2016YFB0600502), special fund of State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control (Grant No. 15Y02ESPCT), the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), and Award KUS-I1-003-13 from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Tina Hantke and Jessica Brandt as well as the technical staff of the MPI are acknowledged for electrochemical measurements/synthesis and standard characterization.Publisher
WileyJournal
ChemSusChemae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1002/cssc.201600590