Highly efficient improvement of power generation and waste removal in microbial fuel cell by associating activated carbon with a novel porous iron-nitrogen-doped carbon nanosphere
The inefficient activated carbon (AC) air-cathode microbial fuel cell (MFC) is greatly constrained by the sluggish oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), which requires highly active and cost-effective catalysts to expedite the reaction kinetics. Herein, we propose an accessible and scalable method to prepare porous iron-nitrogen-doped carbon nanospheres (FFC/NG) by utilizing the inexpensive zinc-iron Prussian blue analogue as the precursor. Physicochemical characterization indicates that the evaporation of Zn is helpful to promote the surface area and mesopores volume. The maximum power density for the optimal sample (FFC/NG@AC-3) is 1913 ± 39 mW m −2 , which is 200.3% higher than that of the bared AC and also outperforms the performance of the commercial Pt/C. The removing rate of chemical oxygen demand (COD) for FFC/NG@AC-3 can reach 80.2% after 72 h, 13.6% higher than that of bared AC. Density functional theory (DFT) confirms that the carbon atoms adjacent to graphitic nitrogen and pyridinic nitrogen on the graphene shell contribute to enhancing the oxygen adsorption energy . It can be well concluded that due to low cost, facile synthesis and remarkable performance, FFC/NG is a promising AC air-cathode modification reagent for MFC.
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