Preparation and characterization of Fe-doped PAA as air-cathode electrocatalyst in microbial fuel cells.

As a kind of nitrogen-containing material, polyamide acid (PAA) was doped by Fe using ferric trichloride (FeCl 3 ), thus obtaining a carbon material (Fe-PAA) containing iron and nitrogen. The preparation efficiency of this material as electrocatalyst was improved and the cost was reduced. In this study, Fe-PAA was used as cathode electrocatalyst in microbial fuel cells (MFCs), and the effect of holding time (HT) on the oxygen reduction was investigated. The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electron transfer number of the Fe-PAA was about 3.55 when the HT was 90 min. This result demonstrates that Fe-PAA could be a promising highly efficient and low-cost cathode catalyst which could be further applied in MFC expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]