Synthesis of Nitrogen-Doped Wood-Based Carbon Materials and Their Application for Oxygen Reduction

Recently, great attention has been focused on biomass-derived electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). In the present study, the wood-derived nitrogen-doped carbon nanomaterials with graphene-like structures have been synthesized from wood biomass using a chemical activation method with NaOH to achieve a high specific surface area (SSA). Then, the activated carbon materials have been doped with nitrogen using dicyandiamide (DCDA) as a cheaper nitrogen precursor. The synthesized catalyst's morphology, structure, and composition have been characterized using TEM, XPS, Raman Spectroscopy, and ICP-OES. The activity of the prepared catalysts was evaluated for ORR in the 0.1 M KOH solution employing the rotating disk electrode (RDE) method. The nitrogen-doped carbon materials have been shown a high electrocatalytic activity and stability for the oxygen reduction reaction. The number of electrons transferred per O2 molecule is close to 4.0. Acknowledgment This project has received funding under the Baltic Research Programme project “Sustainably produced nanomaterials for energy applications (SuNaMa)” (No. S-BMT-21-12, LT08-2-LMT-K-01-055).