A facile method to fabricate N-doped graphene-like carbon as efficient electrocatalyst using spent montmorillonite

Abstract Montmorillonite (Mt), as an efficient adsorbent, has been widely applied in the treatment of wastewater. However, it is important to develop appropriate disposal methods, which are currently lacking for spent Mt after adsorption. We utilized Mt after adsorption of tetracyclines (TC) as carbon source to obtain a by-product, N-doped graphene-like carbon-based electrocatalysts (TC-C), by a facile and low cost pyrolysis strategy. Physicochemical and electrochemical characterization of TC-C indicated that the resultant TC-C was made up of many ultrathin nanosheets, which resembled the morphology of graphene, and it had a large Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area with narrow slit-like pores. Nitrogen doping was evaluated through X-ray photoelectro-spectra measurements and four nitrogen-bonding configurations were identified and quantified, including pyridinic N, pyrrolic N, graphitic N and pyridinic N + –O − . Electrochemical studies showed that TC-C exhibited high catalytic activity for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in alkaline medium with outstanding methanol tolerance compared to the commercial Pt/C catalysts. Furthermore, the effect of the adsorbed amount of TC on the ORR activity of TC-C was slight and the pyrolysis temperature of 700 °C was demonstrated to be the optimal temperature for the pyrolysis process in the recycling of spent Mt.