以细菌纤维素为前驱体简便制备氮掺杂碳纤维气凝胶作为高效氧还原催化剂

数十年来,碳气凝胶因其在催化剂载体、电容器和锂电池电极材料以及吸附剂等领域的潜在应用而备受关注.然而,传统碳气凝胶的制备往往使用昂贵且有毒的前驱体,其方法也较为复杂,不利于大规模生产及应用.本文介绍了一种以细菌纤维素为前驱体制备氮掺杂碳纤维气凝胶的方法.该方法廉价高效,简单易行且对环境无害.所制气凝胶具有密度低、孔隙度高、比表面积大以及导电性良好等优点.它继承了细菌纤维素生物质优异的三维交联多孔结构的特点,可直接用作氧还原催化剂,表现出优异的催化性能,预示着其广泛的应用前景.这在该领域的应用报道尚属首次.

Facile preparation of N-doped carbon nanofiber aerogels from bacterial cellulose as an efficient oxygen reduction reaction electrocatalyst

Carbon aerogels have attracted considerable attention over the past few decades as promising materials for catalyst supports, electrodes for supercapacitors and lithium-ion batteries, and adsorbents. However, expensive and toxic precursors as well as complicated synthetic methods dramatically limit their large-scale production and application. In this work, we developed a facile and effective route to prepare a N-doped carbon nanofiber aerogel (N-CNFA) with low mass density, continuous porosity, high specific surface area, and electrical conductivity from a bacterial cellulose precursor. Because of the highly porous and interconnected 3D structure, the obtained N-doped carbon aerogel was used directly as a catalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), and it exhibited superior catalytic activity. This activity was much higher than that obtained without N-doping, and it can potentially be applied to high-performance fuel cells.