Characterization and oxygen reduction activities of boron-doped ordered mesoporous carbons synthesized by soft-template method

Year 2024, Volume: 9 Issue: 3, 104 - 110, 30.09.2024

Taner Türker , Çiğdem Güldür , Silver Güneş

https://doi.org/10.30728/boron.1432885

Abstract

Boron-doped ordered mesoporous carbons (B-OMCs) were synthesized by a onepot soft-templating strategy, where resorcinol and formaldehyde were used as carbon sources, boric acid was used as boron source, and Pluronic F127 was used as structure directing agent. The effect of temperature and the boric acid content on the physical and electrochemical properties of the resultant materials were investigated. Inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) was used for elemental analysis of the samples. The synthesis temperature did not have an overall positive effect on the doping of boron with a fixed amount of boron source. However, there was a clear increase in the doped-boron content when both the temperature and the boric acid content were increased. Nitrogen adsorption analysis isotherms showed that the samples had similar ordered mesoporous structures with surface areas varying between 535 and 712 m2/g. The uniform morphology in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) also confirmed the ordered mesoporous structure. Employing cyclic voltammetry analysis, the highest oxygen reduction activity (-0.28 mA/cm2) was achieved with the highest boron-doping percentage (0.29%) for a synthesis temperature of 77°C and boric acid to carbon ratio of 2. These results show that the boron-doped ordered mesoporous carbon is a promising material as catalyst support for improving the oxygen reduction reaction activity.

Keywords

Ordered mesoporous carbon, Boron-doping, Soft-template synthesis, Oxygen reduction reaction

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