| AVS 63rd International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Applied Surface Science | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session AS-TuP |
| Session: | Applied Surface Science Division Poster Session |
| Presenter: | Matthew Strand, Colorado School of Mines |
| Authors: | M.B. Strand, Colorado School of Mines C. Ngo, Colorado School of Mines A. White, Colorado School of Mines J. Hagen, Colorado School of Mines S. Pylypenko, Colorado School of Mines |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Continued increase of worldwide energy consumption necessitates the development of renewable energy resources. Fuel cells can utilize a wide variety of renewable fuels, but poor long term stability of the catalyst impacts their economic viability. High surface area carbon is utilized as a state-of-the-art catalyst support, and research has shown that the presence of dopants such as nitrogen can improve the stability of catalyst nanoparticles.1,2 The interplay between nitrogen concentration, graphiticity, and specific nitrogen functionalities and their effect on catalyst-support interactions is still not well understood. Such investigations require the use of model high-surface area materials and multi-technique characterization approach.
In this work, a series of nitrogen-doped carbons was created to serve as model high-surface area substrates with the goal to: investigate in more detail the effect of nitrogen and specific nitrogen functionalities on the stability of metal nanoparticles; enable in situ microscopy analysis of catalyst-support interactions; and serve as a platform for atomistic analysis of dopants in high-surface area carbon materials. N-doped carbon nanospheres were synthesized using a previously published sol-gel method,3 varying both the amount of nitrogen precursor and pyrolysis temperature in order to vary nitrogen concentration and speciation. Samples were first characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to determine nanosphere sizes, then by nitrogen physisorption for surface area and porosity analysis. Detailed analysis with Raman and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopies was completed to correlate changes to the parameter space of the synthesis with ratio of amorphous to graphitic carbon, relative concentrations of nitrogen, and different nitrogen functionalities.
1 K. N. Wood, R. O’Hayre, S. Pylypenko. Energy Environ. Sci.2014, 7, 1212-1249.
2 S. Pylypenko, A. Queen, T. S. Olson, A. Dameron, K. O’Neill, K. C. Neyerlin, B. Pivovar, H. N. Dinh, D. S. Ginley, T. Gennett, R. O’Hayre. J. Phys. Chem. C2011, 115, 13667-13675.
3 N. P. Wickramaratne, J. Xu, M. Wang, L. Zhu, L. Dai, M. Jaroniec. Chem. Mater.2014, 26, 2820-2828.