Improving the yield of hydrogen peroxide on gas diffusion electrode modified with tert-butyl-anthraquinone on different carbon support

• DOI: 10.1016/j.electacta.2019.07.063
• Publication Date: 2019-07-18T06:44:54Z
• Authors: Xiaoye Lu; Minghua Zhou; Yawei Li; Pei Su; Jingju Cai; Yuwei Pan
• Keywords: Gas diffusion electrode; Anthraquinones; Carbon fibers

Abstract Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a green oxidant that widely used in environmental remediation and chemical industries, hence the exploration of suitable modified cathode for the cost-effective electrochemical synthesis of H2O2 is of great importance. In this work, tert-butyl-anthraquinone (TBAQ) was attempted to modify four kinds of typical carbon materials (carbon aerogel, carbon nanotube (CNT), carbon black and graphene-doped carbon black) to fabricate gas diffusion electrode (GDE) to improve H2O2 production for potential use in electro-Fenton process. It was found that CNT-GDE containing 2% TBAQ had the highest H2O2 production (150.6 mg/L) with a high current efficiency (95%) and low energy consumption (2.43 kWh/(kg H2O2)) among four carbon materials because of the redox of TBAQ and more active sites (C–C sp3 carbon and oxygen-containing functional groups). The effects of TBAQ addition amount, current and initial pH on H2O2 performance were investigated. The presence of TBAQ could improve oxygen reduction activity, H2O2 selectivity and hydrophobicity to improve H2O2 production. Suitable current (50 mA) and initial pH benefited the enhancement in H2O2 production. The CNT-GDE containing 2% TBAQ showed better H2O2 production performance with good stability when comparing with literature, indicating promising for electro-Fenton application.