Enhanced bioelectricity generation and cathodic oxygen reduction of air breathing microbial fuel cells based on MoS2 decorated carbon nanotube

Increasing efforts have been devoted to enhancing the cathode activity towards oxygen reduction and improve power generation of air breathing microbial fuel cells. Exploring non-precious metal and highly active cathodic catalyst plays a key role in improving cathode performance. Our work aims to investigate the electrocatalyst behavior and power output of the single-chamber MFC equipped with carbon nanotubes hybridized molybdenum disulfide nanocomposites (CNT/MoS2) cathode. MoS2 nanosheets embedded into the CNTs network structure is synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method. The CNT/MoS2-MFC achieves a maximum power density of 53.0 mW m(-2), which is much higher than those MFCs with pure CNTs (21.4 mW m(-2)) or solely MoS2 (14.4 mW m(-2)) cathode. The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) test also demonstrates a promoted electrocatalytic activity of synthesized material, which may be attributed to the special interlaced structure and abundant oxygen chemisorption sites of CNT/MoS2. Such CNTs-based noble-metal-free catalyst presents a new approach to the application of MFCs cathode materials. (C) 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.