Alternative concepts for energy storage and conversion have to be developed, optimized and employed to fulfill the dream of a fossil-independent energy economy. Porous carbon materials play a major role in many energy-related devices. Among different characteristics, distinct porosity features, e.g., specific surface area (SSA), total pore volume (TPV), and the pore size distribution (PSD), are important to maximize the performance in the final device. In order to approach the aim to synthesize carbon materials with tailor-made porosity in a sustainable fashion, the present thesis focused on biomass-derived precursors employing and developing the ionothermal carbonization. During the ionothermal carbonization, a salt melt simultaneously serves as solvent and porogen. Typically, eutectic mixtures containing zinc chloride are employed as salt phase. The first topic of the present thesis addressed the possibility to precisely tailor the porosity of ionothermal carbon materials by an experimentally simple variation of the molar composition of the binary salt mixture. The developed pore tuning tool allowed the synthesis of glucose derived carbon materials with predictable SSAs in the range of ~ 900 to ~ 2100 m2 g-1. Moreover, the nucleobase adenine was employed as precursor introducing nitrogen functionalities in the final material. Thereby, the chemical properties of the carbon materials are varied leading to new application fields. Nitrogen doped carbons (NDCs) are able to catalyze the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) which takes place on the cathodic site of a fuel cell. The herein developed porosity tailoring allowed the synthesis of adenine derived NDCs with outstanding SSAs of up to 2900 m2 g-1 and very large TPV of 5.19 cm3 g-1. Furthermore, the influence of the porosity on the ORR could be directly investigated enabling the precise optimization of the porosity characteristics of NDCs for this application. The second topic addressed the development of a new method to investigate the not-yet unraveled mechanism of the oxygen reduction reaction using a rotating disc electrode setup. The focus was put on noble-metal free catalysts. The results showed that the reaction pathway of the investigated catalysts is pH-dependent indicating different active species at different pH-values. The third topic addressed the expansion of the used salts for the ionothermal approach towards hydrated calcium and magnesium chloride. It was shown that hydrated salt phases allowed the introduction of a secondary templating effect which was connected to the coexistence of liquid and solid salt phases. The method enabled the synthesis of fibrous NDCs with SSAs of up to 2780 m2 g-1 and very large TPV of 3.86 cm3 g-1. Moreover, the concept of active site implementation by a facile low-temperature metalation employing the obtained NDCs as solid ligands could be shown for the first time in the context of ORR. Overall, the thesis may pave the way towards highly porous carbon with tailor-made porosity materials prepared by an inexpensive and sustainable pathway, which can be applied in energy related field thereby supporting the needed expansion of the renewable energy sector.
porous materials, nitrogen doped carbons, ORR, oxygen reduction reaction, electrocatalysis, poröse Materialien, stickstoffdotierte Kohlenstoffe, Sauerstoff Reduktion, Elektrokatalyse, ionothermal synthesis, ionothermale Synthese
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