The excellent performance of nitrogen-doped porous carbon nanowires modified activated carbon as air cathode catalyst for microbial fuel cells

Nitrogen-doped porous carbon nanowires with polypyrrole as precursor are synthesized by modified oxidation template assembly method. The nitrogen-doped porous carbon nanowires air cathode microbial fuel cells present a maximum power density of 1641.7 ± 0.7 mW m −2 , a significant exchange current density of 19.97 × 10 −4 A cm −2 and an outstanding open circuit voltage of 0.303 V, which are all higher than the control. Nitrogen-doped porous carbon nanowires modified activated carbon catalyzes oxygen reduction reaction via a four-electron reaction with an electron transfer number of 3.89, which can be comparable with Pt-based catalyst. It is testified that the nitrogen-doped porous carbon nanowires are featured with the structure and morphology of surface porous amorphous nanocarbon structure doped with large content of nitrogen. The incorporation of nitrogen, intertwined hollow nanowires, and the porous three-dimensional network configuration make an outstanding contribution to the oxygen reduction reaction. Nitrogen-doped porous carbon nanowires are expected to be a new catalyst to improve the performance of the microbial fuel cells.