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Ultra-high surface area and mesoporous N-doped carbon derived from sheep bones with high electrocatalytic performance toward the oxygen reduction reaction

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Abstract

A nitrogen (N)-doped mesoporous carbon material exhibiting ultra-high surface area was successfully synthesized from sheep bones via a facile and low-cost method. The obtained carbon material had an ultra-high specific surface area of 1961 m2 g−1 and provided rich active sites for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), which in turn resulted in high electrocatalytic activity. It was found that the pore size distribution for the newly prepared carbonaceous material fell in the range of 1–4 nm. Benefiting from its high surface area and the presence of pyridine-N and quaternary-N species, the as-prepared carbon material exhibited excellent ORR activity in an oxygen-saturated 0.1 M KOH solution, compared to commercial Pt/C (10 wt%). Due to its high ORR catalytic activity, stability and low-cost, using sheep bone as C and N precursors to produce N-doped carbon provides an encouraging step toward the goal of replacing commercial Pt/C as fuel cell cathode electrocatalyst.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Youth Fund Promotion Plan of Northwest Normal University (NWNU-LKQN-14-20) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (21363022 and 51362027), Shenzhen Innovation Program JCYJ20140418095735600 for financially supporting this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, 730070, China

    Shunxi Li, Hui Wang, Shan Ji & Rongfang Wang

  2. Institute of Chemical Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266042, China

    Shunxi Li, Hui Wang, Dan J. L. Brett & Rongfang Wang

  3. Department of Chemical Engineering, University College London, London, England, WC1E 6BT, UK

    Ruoyu Xu & Shan Ji

  4. Centre for Renewable Energy, Department of Energy and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, NO-7491, Norway

    Bruno G. Pollet

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  1. Shunxi Li
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  2. Ruoyu Xu
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Correspondence to Shan Ji or Rongfang Wang.

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Li, S., Xu, R., Wang, H. et al. Ultra-high surface area and mesoporous N-doped carbon derived from sheep bones with high electrocatalytic performance toward the oxygen reduction reaction. J Solid State Electrochem 21, 2947–2954 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-017-3630-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-017-3630-3

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