Poison tolerance of non-precious catalyst towards oxygen reduction reaction

Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) plays an important role in microbial fuel cell (MFC) performance. But the poison ions in wastewater may have a considerable effect on the activity of ORR catalysts. In this paper, we herein investigated the effect of typical NH4+ and S2− ions on the activity of different ORR catalysts, such as biomass derived carbon (bamboo charcoal (BC)), nitrogen doped graphene (N-G), iron/nitrogen co-doped graphene (Fe/N-G) and Pt/C catalysts. The results showed that the ORR catalytic activity was decreased in the presence of both NH4+ and S2− ions. In detail, the NH4+ ion only had a slight and similar effect on the catalysts. However, the effect of S2− on catalyst activity was much more negative, compared to that of NH4+. Notably, the BC, N-G and Fe/N-G catalysts exhibited a higher poison tolerance than Pt/C, indicating that BC, N-G and Fe/N-G catalysts could serve as poison tolerance ORR catalysts in both of NH4+ and S2− condition.