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ZnO@C (core@shell) microspheres derived from spent coffee grounds as applicable non-precious electrode material for DMFCs

Although numerous reports have introduced non precious electrocatalysts for methanol oxidation, most of those studies did not consider the corresponding high onset potential which restricts utilization in real fuel cells. In this study, an −90 mV [vs. Ag/AgCl] onset potential non-precious electrocat...

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Autores principales: Ghouri, Zafar Khan, Al-Meer, Saeed, Barakat, Nasser A. M., Kim, Hak Yong
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5431908/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28496121
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01463-3
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author Ghouri, Zafar Khan
Al-Meer, Saeed
Barakat, Nasser A. M.
Kim, Hak Yong
author_facet Ghouri, Zafar Khan
Al-Meer, Saeed
Barakat, Nasser A. M.
Kim, Hak Yong
author_sort Ghouri, Zafar Khan
collection PubMed
description Although numerous reports have introduced non precious electrocatalysts for methanol oxidation, most of those studies did not consider the corresponding high onset potential which restricts utilization in real fuel cells. In this study, an −90 mV [vs. Ag/AgCl] onset potential non-precious electrocatalyst is introduced as an applicable anode material for the direct methanol fuel cells. Moreover, the proposed material was prepared from a cheap and abundantly existing resource; the spent coffee grounds. Typically, the spent coffee grounds were facilely converted to core@shell (ZnO@C) microspheres through a two-step approach, involving chemical activation and a subsequent calcination at temperature of 700 °C. Activation of the carbon derived from the spent coffee grounds was performed with ZnCl(2) which acts as pore-forming agent as well as a precursor for the ZnO. The structure and morphology were characterized by (XRD), (SEM), and (TEM) analyses while the electrochemical characterizations was evaluated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) technique. Besides the comparatively very low onset potential, the introduced microspheres exhibited relatively high current density; 17 mA/cm(2). Overall, based on the advantages of the green source of carbon and the good electrocatalytic activity, the spent coffee grounds-derived carbon can be considered a promise anode material for the DMFCs.
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spelling pubmed-54319082017-05-16 ZnO@C (core@shell) microspheres derived from spent coffee grounds as applicable non-precious electrode material for DMFCs Ghouri, Zafar Khan Al-Meer, Saeed Barakat, Nasser A. M. Kim, Hak Yong Sci Rep Article Although numerous reports have introduced non precious electrocatalysts for methanol oxidation, most of those studies did not consider the corresponding high onset potential which restricts utilization in real fuel cells. In this study, an −90 mV [vs. Ag/AgCl] onset potential non-precious electrocatalyst is introduced as an applicable anode material for the direct methanol fuel cells. Moreover, the proposed material was prepared from a cheap and abundantly existing resource; the spent coffee grounds. Typically, the spent coffee grounds were facilely converted to core@shell (ZnO@C) microspheres through a two-step approach, involving chemical activation and a subsequent calcination at temperature of 700 °C. Activation of the carbon derived from the spent coffee grounds was performed with ZnCl(2) which acts as pore-forming agent as well as a precursor for the ZnO. The structure and morphology were characterized by (XRD), (SEM), and (TEM) analyses while the electrochemical characterizations was evaluated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) technique. Besides the comparatively very low onset potential, the introduced microspheres exhibited relatively high current density; 17 mA/cm(2). Overall, based on the advantages of the green source of carbon and the good electrocatalytic activity, the spent coffee grounds-derived carbon can be considered a promise anode material for the DMFCs. Nature Publishing Group UK 2017-05-11 /pmc/articles/PMC5431908/ /pubmed/28496121 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01463-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Ghouri, Zafar Khan
Al-Meer, Saeed
Barakat, Nasser A. M.
Kim, Hak Yong
ZnO@C (core@shell) microspheres derived from spent coffee grounds as applicable non-precious electrode material for DMFCs
title ZnO@C (core@shell) microspheres derived from spent coffee grounds as applicable non-precious electrode material for DMFCs
title_full ZnO@C (core@shell) microspheres derived from spent coffee grounds as applicable non-precious electrode material for DMFCs
title_fullStr ZnO@C (core@shell) microspheres derived from spent coffee grounds as applicable non-precious electrode material for DMFCs
title_full_unstemmed ZnO@C (core@shell) microspheres derived from spent coffee grounds as applicable non-precious electrode material for DMFCs
title_short ZnO@C (core@shell) microspheres derived from spent coffee grounds as applicable non-precious electrode material for DMFCs
title_sort zno@c (core@shell) microspheres derived from spent coffee grounds as applicable non-precious electrode material for dmfcs
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5431908/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28496121
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01463-3
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