Synergistic Effect of Ta_2O_5/F-C Composites for Effective Electrosynthesis of Hydrogen Peroxide from O_2 Reduction

The electrosynthesis of H_2O_2 as an environmentally friendly green process has attracted great attention due to the importance of H_2O_2 in industry and human lives.In this work,a new strategy was proposed to improve the electrical conductivity and H_2O_2 selectivity of transition metal oxides catalysts.F-C(F doped carbon)was coupled with Ta_2O_5 by calcining polyvinylidene fluoride(PVDF) as the carbon source using one step method.The Ta_2O_5/F-C composite catalysts show an excellent H_2O_2 selectivity of more than 80% as well as high reactivity at2.52 mA/cm~2,which is greatly enhanced compared to the counterparts of F-C(selectivity of 59%) and Ta_2O_5-800(current density of 0.85 mA/cm~2) in 0.1 M KOH solution.The onset potential for H_2O_2 production on Ta_2O_5/F-C composites is 0.78 V in 0.1 M KOH,which indicates a negligible overpotential.In addition,H_2O_2 selectivity of the catalyst can be stabilized at more than 80% after 10 hours of electrolysis in alkaline electrolyte.The high performance due to the introduction of F-C increases the conductivity of Ta_2O_5 and the synergistic effect between F-C and Ta_2O_5.This work proposed an efficient synergistic effect among F-doped C and Ta_2O_5 for H_2O_2 production.