Urea treatment of nitrogen-doped carbon leads to enhanced performance for the oxygen reduction reaction

Manufacturing of advanced functional materials should also rely on the green chemistry principles like utilization of natural renewable resources. Marine environment offers plenty of renewable raw materials like chitin and its derivative chitosan. The paper presents how urea treatment has influenced...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of materials research 2018-06, Vol.33 (11), p.1612-1624
Main Authors: Ilnicka, Anna, Lukaszewicz, Jerzy P., Shimanoe, Kengo, Yuasa, Masayoshi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activated carbon
Applied and Technical Physics
Biomaterials
Cellulose
Chemical reactions
Chemistry
Chitin
Chitosan
Electrodes
Graphene
Inorganic Chemistry
Marine environment
Marine resources
Materials Engineering
Materials research
Materials Science
Molecular chains
Nanotechnology
Nitrogen
Nitrogenation
Organic chemistry
Oxygen reduction reactions
Precursors
Premixing
Raw materials
Renewable resources
Rotation
Science
Temperature
Ureas
Water
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Manufacturing of advanced functional materials should also rely on the green chemistry principles like utilization of natural renewable resources. Marine environment offers plenty of renewable raw materials like chitin and its derivative chitosan. The paper presents how urea treatment has influenced several textural, chemical, and electrocatalytic properties of N-doped activated carbons (N_ACs) obtained from chitosan and chitin. The materials were subjected to an activation procedure (with different activators) as well as nitrogenation by premixing the precursors with water solutions of urea. Raw and premixed precursors were carbonized in the temperature range of 700–800 °C. The urea treatment resulted in a spectacular increase in the nitrogen content by weight (up to 68%) and an improvement of the surface area (up to 42%) along with total/micro-/mezo-pore volume (up to 49%). Some urea-modified N_ACs were capable of reducing oxygen in an alkaline solution as effectively as a Pt-loaded carbon material. The highest number of electrons transferred to O2 molecule was found to be equal to 3.76 for a chitosan derived sample. This ability of chitosan and chitin derived N-rich activated carbons was studied by means of the method named rotating ring disc electrode.
ISSN:0884-2914
2044-5326
DOI:10.1557/jmr.2018.116