BIOCHAR AS CATALYST SUPPORT: SYNTHESIS, CHARACTERIZATION AND APPLICATIONS

NIEVA, MARÍA LUZ; COMIGNANI, VANINA; SIEBEN, JUAN MANUEL; VOLPE, MARÍA ALICIA; MOYANO, ELIZABETH LAURA

Córdoba

Congreso; CLAFQO-13 13a Conferencia Latinoamericana de Físico-Química Orgánica 13th Latin American Conference on Physical Organic Chemistry; 2015

Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Facultad de Ciencias químicas

Carbon supported Pt-based electrocatalysts are commonly used for the anodic oxidation of fuels and the cathodic reduction of oxygen in low temperature fuel cells. However, the high cost of the platinum limits its use. Thus, a great effort has been devoted to the development of fuel cell electrocatalysts with the aims of increasing their activity and reducing the noble metal content. The use of carbon materials with high surface area as catalysts support improves catalyst performance and reduces the amount of catalysts and thus their costs. Charcoal (biochar) is a by-product of biomass pyrolysis. Feedstock as well as pyrolysis conditions influence the charcoal production varying its physical and chemical properties. The main purpose of this work was to characterize and evaluate the utilization of biochars, obtained from fast pyrolysis of microcrystalline cellulose (BMCC) and phosphoric acid-pretreated microcrystalline cellulose (B-TMCC), as carbon support of Cu core Pt-Ru shell nanoparticles for the electro-oxidation of alcohols in acid media.