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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