Li Huiyu, Li Na, Zuo Pingping, Qu Shijie, Qin Fangfang, Shen Wenzhong
State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Taiyuan 030001, PR China; Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China.
State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Taiyuan 030001, PR China; Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China; School of Energy Industry, Shanxi College of Technology, Shuozhou, 036000, PR China.
J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Jun 15;640:391-404. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.125. Epub 2023 Feb 27.
The development of high-performance bifunctional electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction and heavy metal ion (HMI) detection is significant and challenging. Here, a novel nitrogen, sulfur co-doped porous carbon sphere bifunctional catalyst was designed and fabricated by hydrothermal followed by carbonization using starch as carbon source and thiourea as nitrogen, sulfur source for HMI detection and oxygen evolution reactions. Under the synergistic effect of pore structure, active sites and nitrogen, sulfur functional groups, C-S-HT-C demonstrated excellent HMI detection performance and oxygen evolution reaction activity. Under optimized conditions, the detection limits (LODs) of C-S-HT-C sensor were 3.90, 3.86 and 4.91 nM for Cd, Pb and Hg when detected individually; and the sensitivities were 13.12, 19.50 and 21.19 μA/μM. The sensor also obtained high recoveries of Cd, Hg and Pb in river water samples. During the oxygen evolution reaction, a Tafel slope of 70.1 mV/dec and a low overpotential of 277 mV were obtained for C-S-HT-C electrocatalyst with a current density of 10 mA/cm in basic electrolyte. This research offers a neoteric and simple strategy in the design as well as fabrication of bifunctional carbon-based electrocatalysts.
