凯发

One of key issues in the development of renewable energy production technologies is the discovery of efficient and cost-effective catalysts for use in electrochemical energy conversion processes such as fuel cells and metal-air batteries. In fuel cells, and Li-air batteries, energy conversions need precious metals – primarily Pt – as catalysts to promote electrochemical reactions on the cathode. Efforts are needed to search for an alternative material which is readily available, cost effective and can show comparable catalytic effects for catalytic cathodic reduction in fuel cells. In this talk, doped graphene are introduced as new efficient catalysts for fuel cells and Li-air batteries. Processes such as ball milling were used to fabricate the catalysts. It is demonstrated that N, S and halogen-doped graphenes are an excellent catalyst for fuel cell and batteries promising to replace the expensive platinum electrodes. First-principle simulations were performed to investigate the catalytic mechanisms of the doped graphene. The improved catalytic performance is attributed to the electron-accepting ability of the dopants, which creates net positive charge and spin density on adjacent carbon atoms in the carbon plane.