Temperature versus type: Which is the determining factor in biomass-based electrocatalyst performance?

• Published in: Applied catalysis. B, Environmental Environmental, 2023-05, Vol.325, p.122391, Article 122391
• Main Authors: Zhang, Wendu, Wei, Shilin, Bai, Peiyao, Liu, Weiqi, Yang, Chuangchuang, Xu, Lang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Consistency; Convergence; Divergence; Part; Processing temperature
• ISSN: 0926-3373; 1873-3883
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apcatb.2023.122391

Having high natural abundance enables biomass to be deliberately employed to prepare electrocatalysts by annealing processing. The great diversity of biomass originating from different types or parts is leading to concerns about consistency of product performance. Taking acidic and alkaline electroreduction of dioxygen as the object of study, we have demonstrated that processing temperatures exert much more powerful influence over structures and activities of biomass-based electrocatalysts than which parts of biomass are used. It has been found that initial discrepancies due to different parts are narrowed and aggregated by arithmetic means in terms of structures and activities at the same elevated temperatures, whereas there are wide gaps between electrocatalysts prepared at different processing temperatures even though they stem from the same part of biomass. We have also explored systematically how processing temperatures tailor pore width distributions and nitrogen species distributions and how these parameters tune mass transport and reaction intermediate absorption strengths with concomitant performance on the basis of a great deal of experimental and theoretical evidence. Hence, this work helps to address growing concerns about consistency of biomass-based electrocatalysts and to indicate the feasibility of their large-scale manufactures because temperature is the determining factor, not type. [Display omitted] •Processing temperature is a deciding factor.•Part of biomass is not decisive.•High temperature makes different types similar.•Structures and activities tend to be averaged out.