Biomass-derived N-doped carbon and its application in electrocatalysis

• Biomass chitosan was used to synthesize N-doped carbon (NC).
• NC enable the uniform dispersion of Pt nanoparticles.
• Pt/NC exhibited enhanced activity for methanol oxidation reaction.
• Chitosan is a green, inexpensive and sustainable precursor of NC.

The economical, green and sustainable preparation of functional carbon materials is of interest for energy storage and conversion technology. Herein, a functional N-doped carbon material (NC) was obtained from green biomass and cheap carbon black. The as-prepared NC enables the formation of highly-dispersed Pt nanocatalyst. Interestingly, compared to a state-of-the-art commercial Pt/C catalyst, the as-prepared Pt/NC catalyst shows a superior electrocatalytic performance with a 1.4-fold improvement in mass activity and a 1.5-fold enhancement in stability for methanol electrooxidation reaction. Thus, the green and earth-abundant biomass materials exhibit the promise in designing and producing functional carbon materials for high-performance electrochemical devices.

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