1. Hydrogen peroxide generation in microbial fuel cells using graphene-based air-cathodes.
- Author
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Dong, Heng, Liu, Xiaowan, Xu, Ting, Wang, Qiuying, Chen, Xianghao, Chen, Shuning, Zhang, Helan, Liang, Peng, Huang, Xia, and Zhang, Xiaoyuan
- Subjects
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HYDROGEN peroxide , *GRAPHENE oxide , *MICROBIAL fuel cells , *WASTEWATER treatment , *CATALYTIC activity - Abstract
Utilization of two-electron oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in bioelectrochemical systems (BES) is a novel way to generate H 2 O 2 from wastewater, and cathode catalyst is a key factor affecting ORR performance. Here, the catalytic performance of plain graphene, oxidized graphene and graphene oxide (GO) in microbial fuel cells (MFCs) and the influence of oxygen-containing functional groups are reported. Oxidized graphene air-cathode had 78% and 131% higher H 2 O 2 productions than plain graphene cathode respectively in an abiotic reactor and an MFC. GO showed nearly no H 2 O 2 production in the tests. XPS revealed that oxygen atomic fraction of oxidized graphene reached 5.7%, mostly in the form of C O C. These results show that oxidized graphene had good catalytic performance for H 2 O 2 production, and oxygen-containing functional groups, especially C O C could significantly enhance its performance, but overoxidation worked adversely. Meanwhile, using oxidized graphene air-cathode could realize simultaneous wastewater treatment, power output and H 2 O 2 generation in MFCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2017
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