Modification of PPy‐NW Anode by Carbon Dots for High‐performance Mini‐microbial Fuel Cells

作者：Boai Li, Z. Zhao, Zhengjin Weng, Yong Fang, Wei Lei, Di Zhu, Helong Jiang, Mohd Nazim Mohtar, Izhal b. Abdul Halin · 发表于：Fuel Cells · 年份：2020 · DOI：10.1002/fuce.201900210 · 被引用次数：15 · 研究领域：Microbial Fuel Cells and Bioremediation、Electrochemical sensors and biosensors、Supercapacitor Materials and Fabrication

Abstract To boost the performance of microbial fuel cells (MFCs), a novel material of polypyrrole nanowires (PPy‐NWs) modified by carbon dots (CDs) is synthesized by polymerizing pyrrole monomers and CDs, in which CDs are attached and distributed on the surface of the PPy‐NWs, thus leading to the rough surface with a special dot‐line structure. Such CDs/PPy‐NW composite with special unique structure exhibits superior properties, and excellent performance is found for MFC using CDs/PPy‐NW composite as anode. The electron transfer rate increases to 0.0934 s −1 with a sharp rise by 26% over pure PPy‐NWs, and the resistances of CDs/PPy‐NW electrode are only one third of those of pure PPy‐NWs electrode. Further, the mini‐MFC equipped with the CDs/PPy‐NW composite as anode exhibits a high open circuit voltage (630 mV) and its maximum power density with a value of 291.4 mW m −2 is twice that of the mini‐MFC equipped with pure PPy‐NWs anode. These results demonstrate CDs/PPy‐NW with a unique dot‐line structure as a more promising anode material for MFC application.