Coal chars recovered from fly ash as promising electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction

The endless and dramatic increase of global energy demand makes it imperative to develop sustainable, affordable, and efficient materials to act as electrocatalysts in the clean energy technologies. Electrocatalysts based on coal chars are promising materials as they can be considered as value-added by-products from coal combustion contributing to industrial ecology and circular economy. Therefore, herein we report the application of three sets of coal char (char concentrates before and after carbonization and demineralized and graphitized char concentrates) obtained from four different countries (Portugal, Romania, Poland, and South Africa) as oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalysts. All electrocatalysts presented moderate ORR activity with some showing selectivity for the indirect two-electron process while others for a mixed regime between the two- and four-electron process. Still, the positive results obtained are better or in some cases comparable to commercial graphene. Moreover, all electrocatalysts presented good tolerance to methanol poisoning. More importantly, the results of this study demonstrate that pristine coal chars are promising materials to prepare efficient ORR electrocatalysts which will be of great importance in the near future.