Facile Synthesis of PVP-MnO<sub>2</sub>/CNT Composites as ORR Electrocatalyst for an Air-Cathode Microbial Fuel Cell

Ong H. R., Woon C. W., Ahmad M. S., Yousuf A., Cheng C. K., Khan M. M. R.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ELECTROCHEMICAL SCIENCE, vol.13, no.8, pp.7789-7799, 2018 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)

Abstract

The cathodic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is an influential step in fuel cells for the electrochemical energy conversion. Here we synthesized Polyvinylpyrrolidone incorporated carbon nanotube supported manganese dioxide (PVP-MnO2/CNT) composite and used as ORR electrocatalyst for air-cathode microbial fuel cell (MFC). The physical and electrochemical characterization of PVPMnO2/CNT were performed by using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), X-ray Diffraction analysis (XRD), Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS). The electrochemical characterization results showed that the PVP-MnO2/CNT possessed the higher ORR catalytic activity with lower charge transfer resistance compared to MnO2 and MnO2/CNT. The performance of the electrocatalysts as cathode was evaluated in air-cathode MFC and it was found that the MFC with MnO2-PVP/CNT electrocatalyst generated a maximum power density of 1365.30 mW/m(3), which was higher than that of MFCs with MnO2/CNT catalyst (1083.98 mW/m(3)), MnO2 (540.91 mW/m(3)) and CNT (438.47 mW/m(3)). Therefore, the viable synthetic strategy and proposed application of PVP-MnO2/CNT will broaden up the reality of MFC for power generation.