Advances in Biomass-Based Electrocatalysts

A special issue of Catalysts (ISSN 2073-4344). This special issue belongs to the section "Electrocatalysis".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 May 2025 | Viewed by 275

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
REQUIMTE-LAQV, Departamento de Química e Bioquímica, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
Interests: electrocatalysis; energy-related reactions; nanochemistry and nanotechnology; materials chemistry; CO2 valorization; carbon-based materials; metal oxides; biomass
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
REQUIMTE, Departamento de Química e Bioquímica, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
Interests: heterogeneous catalysis; catalytic process; biomass valorization; carbon-based material; biofuels; CO2 valorization; renewable energy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The current global energy crisis and the negative environmental impacts resulting from the incessant use of fossil fuels have driven scientists to develop novel renewable energy storage and conversion technologies, such as fuel cells, water splitting devices, metal–air batteries and CO2 conversion devices. Electrocatalysis plays a key role in these clean energy devices, enabling several sustainable processes for future technologies, and the design and development of highly efficient and cost-effective materials is one of the current major challenges. Even though the commonly employed technologies are expensive due to the use of noble metal-based electrocatalysts, tremendous research efforts have been made to develop inexpensive and abundant biomass-derived electrocatalysts.

This Special Issue aims to cover the latest advances in emerging biomass-based electrocatalysts, including the synthesis, characterization, and evaluation of their electrocatalytic performances for different reactions like oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), and CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) as well as in the production of value-added chemicals from electrocatalytic hydrogenation of lignocellulosic bio-oil and carbon–nitrogen-containing building blocks from electrocatalytic reductive amination of biomass derivatives.

It is our pleasure to invite you to submit a full paper, detailed review, mini-review, or significant preliminary communication related to the topic.

Dr. Diana M. Fernandes
Dr. Andreia F. Peixoto
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • biomass
  • biomass valorization
  • electrocatalysis for sustainable energy
  • electrocatalysts
  • electrode materials
  • energy conversion
  • energy storage
  • electrocatalytic hydrogenation

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 5343 KiB  
Article
In Situ Synthesis of Co3O4 Nanoparticles on N-Doped Biochar as High-Performance Oxygen Reduction Reaction Electrocatalysts
by Renata Matos, Jorge V. Manuel, António J. S. Fernandes, Victor K. Abdelkader-Fernández, Andreia F. Peixoto and Diana M. Fernandes
Catalysts 2024, 14(12), 951; https://doi.org/10.3390/catal14120951 - 23 Dec 2024
Abstract
The development of sustainable and high-performance oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalysts is fundamental to fuel cell implementation. Non-precious transition metal oxides present interesting electrocatalytic behavior, and their incorporation into N-doped carbon supports leads to excellent ORR performance. Herein, we prepared a shrimp shell-derived [...] Read more.
The development of sustainable and high-performance oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalysts is fundamental to fuel cell implementation. Non-precious transition metal oxides present interesting electrocatalytic behavior, and their incorporation into N-doped carbon supports leads to excellent ORR performance. Herein, we prepared a shrimp shell-derived biochar (CC), which was doped with nitrogen via a ball milling approach (N-CC), and then used as support for Co3O4 nanoparticles growth (N-CC@Co3O4). Co3O4 loading was optimized using three different amounts of cobalt precursor: 1.56, 2.33 and 3.11 mmol in N-CC@Co3O4_1, N-CC@Co3O4_2 and N-CC@Co3O4_3, respectively. Interestingly, all prepared electrocatalysts, including the initial biochar CC, presented electrocatalytic activity towards ORR. Both N-doping and the introduction of Co3O4 NPs had a significant positive effect on ORR performance. Meanwhile, the three composites showed distinct ORR behavior, demonstrating that it is possible to tune their electrocatalytic performance by changing the Co3O4 loading. Overall, N-CC@Co3O4_2 achieved the most promising ORR results, displaying an Eonset of 0.84 V vs. RHE, jL of −3.45 mA cm−2 and excellent selectivity for the 4-electron reduction (n = 3.50), besides good long-term stability. These results were explained by a combination of high content of pyridinic-N and graphitic-N, high ratio of pyridinic-N/graphitic-N, and optimized Co3O4 loading interacting synergistically with the porous N-CC support. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Biomass-Based Electrocatalysts)
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