| Fuel cells are considered to be the most promising novel energy source with the advantages of high energy-conversion efficiency and zero-pollutant. It is well known that the catalysts are the key component of fuel cells. At present, the noble and rare Pt metal is the mainly used catalyst for fuel cells, which hinders the large-scale application of fuel cells. Therefore, it is of significant importance to develop the non-precious metal catalysts (NPMCs) with facile preparation method, low cost and better electrocatalytic activity to promote the commercialization of fuel cells technology.In this paper, we innovatively adopted the very cheap biomass, pork liver, as the raw material for the first time and obtained the pork liver precursor through special preparation technologies. The catalysts were prepared by two-step pyrolysis method, carbon supported method and SiO2 template method. The influences of the heat-treatment temperatures and the ratio of mixed gases on the catalytic activity were investigated. In order to explore the surface element composition, crystal phase structure and surface morphology of the as-prepared catalysts, a variety of characterizations, including TG/DTG, SEM, XRD, XPS, ICP, Raman and N2 adsorption-desorption isotherms were carried out. The electrocatalytic performance, durability and resistance to methanol toxic for oxygen reduction reation were evaluated by cyclic voltammetry (CV), linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) and chronoamperometry in alkaline solution. The experimental results showed that the catalyst prepared by SiO2 template method exhibited remarkably excellent electrocatalytic performance compared with the commercially available Alfa-Aesar Pt/C catalyst. In particular, the catalytic stability and the tolerance to methanol of the catalyst increased drastically. The results in this work is likely to provide new sight into development of commercially available NPMCs in the cathode oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) of fuel cells. |
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