Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are extremely important electrochemical processes considering the increasing world energy requirements and decreasing fossil fuel reserves. The low temperature of operation of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells and electrolyzers as well as sluggish kinetics of these reactions necessitate precious metal-based catalysts which are expensive and available only in limited quantities making a strong case to study alternative low cost catalyst materials. The present study demonstrates that nitrogen-doped carbon nanostructures (CNx) are efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts for ORR and OER. These catalyst materials exhibit significantly lower total overpotential requirements for the two reactions compared to state-of the art precious metal-based catalysts such as Pt/C (for ORR) and Ir/C (for OER). In addition, these catalysts do not lose their ORR activity due to chloride ion and thus are also suitable for oxygen depolarized HCl electrolysis process to manufacture chlorine in a safer, sustainable and more efficient manner. We also aim to shed light into the nature of active sites in these CNx materials using a wide range of surface and bulk characterization techniques such as Transmission Electron Microscopy, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy, X-ray Diffraction, Transmission Infrared Spectroscopy Laser Raman Spectroscopy, Mössbauer Spectroscopy and Superconducting Quantum Interference Device Magnetometry (SQUID).

Nitrogen-doped Carbon Nanostructures (CNx) as as  bifunctional electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction and oxygen evolution reaction in acidic media

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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