Porous Carbon-Carbon Nanotubes Composites with Different Structures (CNTs/PC, CNTs@PC) as Catalysts for ORR

摘要

Background: Non-precious metal based catalysts have become a hot research material due to their easy availability, low cost and outstanding electrochemical performance. Among them, carbon-based materials like carbon nanotubes and porous carbon with their own characteristics arc especially favored by researchers in the field of catalyzing oxygen reduction. Therefore, rational construction of combining porous carbon with carbon nanotubes attracts great research attention on the object to utilize the excellent porosity, large specific surface area of porous carbon and the good electronic conductivity, high stability of carbon nanotubes to catalyze oxygen reduction. In this work, we synthesized two catalysts with different structure of coating carbon nanotubes with porous carbon by paralyzing a mixture of pre-prepared porous carbon, Co3O4 nanoparticles and melamine/glucosamine hydrochloride. Then, the composites were applied to fuel cells as cathodic oxygen reduction reaction catalysts, which both exhibited good onset potential and excellent stability.