Abstract
This thesis describes the results of the investigations on the catalytic activity and their active sites of carbon alloy catalysts, where carbon alloy catalysts represent the carbon based catalysts prepared by introducing heterogeneous carbon structure or heteroatoms into carbon matrices. The reactions investigated here were electrochemical reduction of oxygen molecule (ORR) and two organic reactions, Knoevenagel reaction and transestrification reaction. The studies on the ORR activity revealed the importance of the defective structure due to the partial sp3-character of the carbon atoms constructing the catalysts. The studies on the catalytic activities for base-catalyzed organic reactions were conducted with nitrogen-doped carbon alloy catalysts, which estimated that the nitrogen containing active sites were associated with the oxygen functional groups. This thesis finally demonstrated the possibility of the carbon alloy catalysts for applying to the extended areas and provided a guideline for designing the high-performance carbon alloy catalysts.
