Heteroatom-doped highly porous carbon derived from petroleum coke as efficient cathode catalyst for microbial fuel cells

• Porous carbon derived from petroleum coke is used as efficient cathode catalyst.
• The performance of petrocoke carbon cathode is comparable to Pt/C cathode.
• The high performance can be attributed to its high surface area and heteroatoms.
• Petrocoke carbon is a low-cost and reliable alternative to Pt-based cathode catalyst.

Petrocoke carbon (PC) was prepared by pyrolysis of easily available byproduct of oil refining, petroleum coke. Thus-obtained PC not only possesses highly porous surface area, but also contains heteroatoms such as phosphate and sulfur in its framework. These properties make petrocoke carbon a good choice as a precursor for high performance air-cathode catalyst. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) with PC as air-cathode catalyst produced a maximum power density of 1029.77 ± 99.53 mW m−2, which was higher than those with Pt/C cathodes or activated carbon cathodes. Furthermore, PC cathodes have comparable durability to activated carbon cathodes, demonstrating that the PC can be a low-cost and reliable alternative to precious-metal-based electrocatalysts for the air cathode in MFCs.

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