Electricity Generation from Capillary-Driven Ionic Solution Flow in a Three-Dimensional Graphene Membrane.

Harvesting energy from the ambient environment provides great promise in the applications of micro/nanodevices and self-powered systems. Herein, we report a novel energy-scavenging method where an ionic solution infiltrating into a three-dimensional graphene (3DG) membrane can spontaneously generate electricity under ambient conditions. A constructed 3DG nanogenerator (3DGNG) with an effective size of 0.5 × 2 cm can produce a continuous voltage of ∼0.28 V and a remarkable output current of ∼62 µA. The voltage is higher than those generated from the interaction between water and carbon nanomaterials in previous research typically in the range of microvolts to millivolts. Moreover, we demonstrate the potential application of the 3DGNG by illuminating a liquid crystal display (LCD) directly with 10 3DGNGs in series. These results present a novel avenue for energy harvesting and show bright potential applications in small devices and self-powered systems.

Enhanced Oxygen Reduction Reaction by In Situ Anchoring Fe2N Nanoparticles on Nitrogen-Doped Pomelo Peel-Derived Carbon.

The development of effective oxygen electrode catalysts for renewable energy technologies such as metal-air batteries and fuel cells remains challenging. Here, we prepared a novel high-performance oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalyst comprised of Fe2N nanoparticles (NPs) in situ decorated over an N-doped porous carbon derived from pomelo peel (i.e., Fe2N/N-PPC). The decorated Fe2N NPs provided large quantities of Fe-N-C bonding catalytic sites. The as-obtained Fe2N/N-PPC showed superior onset and half-wave potentials (0.966 and 0.891 V, respectively) in alkaline media (0.1 M KOH) compared to commercial Pt/C through a direct four-electron reaction pathway. Fe2N/N-PPC also showed better stability and methanol tolerance than commercial Pt/C. The outstanding ORR performance of Fe2N/N-PPC was attributed to its high specific surface area and the synergistic effects of Fe2N NPs. The utilization of agricultural wastes as a precursor makes Fe2N/N-PPC an ideal non-precious metal catalyst for ORR applications.

Ternary Pt9RhFex Nanoscale Alloys as Highly Efficient Catalysts with Enhanced Activity and Excellent CO-Poisoning Tolerance for Ethanol Oxidation.

To address the problems of high cost and poor stability of anode catalysts in direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs), ternary nanoparticles Pt9RhFex (x = 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9) supported on carbon powders (XC-72R) have been synthesized via a facile method involving reduction by sodium borohydride followed by thermal annealing in N2 at ambient pressure. The catalysts are physically characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and their catalytic performance for the ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR) is evaluated by cyclic and linear scan voltammetry, CO-stripping voltammograms, and chronopotentiometry. All the Pt9RhFex/C catalysts of different atomic ratios produce high EOR catalytic activity. The catalyst of atomic ratio composition 9:1:3 (Pt/Rh/Fe) has the highest activity and excellent CO-poisoning tolerance. Moreover, the enhanced EOR catalytic activity on Pt9RhFe3/C when compared to Pt9Rh/C, Pt3Fe/C, and Pt/C clearly demonstrates the presence of Fe improves catalytic performance. Notably, the onset potential for CO oxidation on Pt9RhFe3/C (0.271 V) is ∼55, 75, and 191 mV more negative than on Pt9Rh/C (0.326 V), Pt3Fe/C (0.346 V), and Pt/C (0.462 V), respectively, which implies the presence of Fe atoms dramatically improves CO-poisoning tolerance. Meanwhile, compared to the commercial PtRu/C catalyst, the peak potential on Pt9RhFe3/C for CO oxidation was just slightly changed after several thousand cycles, which shows high stability against the potential cycling. The possible mechanism by which Fe and Rh atoms facilitate the observed enhanced performance is also considered herein, and we conclude Pt9RhFe3/C offers a promising anode catalyst for direct ethanol fuel cells.

Synthesis and structure-activity relationship exploration of carbon-supported PtRuNi nanocomposite as a CO-tolerant electrocatalyst for proton exchange membrane fuel cells.

A carbon-supported PtRuNi nanocomposite is synthesized via a microwave-irradiated polyol plus annealing synthesis strategy. The catalyst is characterized by transmission electron microscopy, powder X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The data are discussed with respect to those for the carbon-supported PtRu nanocomposite prepared following the same way. The characterizations show that the inclusion of Ni in the PtRu system has only a small effect on the particle size, the structure, and the compositional homogeneity. CO-stripping voltammetry and measurements on the single proton exchange membrane fuel cells show that the PtRuNi/C catalyst has an improved activity for CO(ads) electro-oxidation. An accelerated durability test on the catalyst exhibits insignificant loss of activity in acidic media. On the basis of the exploration of the structure-activity relationship, a mechanism for the improved performance of the catalyst is proposed. It is suggested that the improved CO-tolerant performance of the PtRuNi/C nanocomposite should be related to the hydrogen spillover on the catalyst surface, the enhanced oxidation of CO(ads) by nickel hydroxides, and the high proton and electronic conductivity of the hydroxides. The nickel hydroxide passivated surface and/or anchoring of metallic nickel in the platinum lattice may contribute to the durability of the catalyst in acid solution.