Designing Breathing Air-electrode and Enhancing the Oxygen Electrocatalysis by Thermoelectric Effect for Efficient Zn-air Batteries

Xuerong Zheng; Yanhui Cao; Haozhi Wang; Jinfeng Zhang; Menghan Zhao; Zhong Huang; Yang Wang; Li Zhang; Yida Deng; Wenbin Hu; Xiaopeng Han

doi:10.1002/anie.202302689

Designing Breathing Air-electrode and Enhancing the Oxygen Electrocatalysis by Thermoelectric Effect for Efficient Zn-air Batteries

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2023 Jun 12;62(24):e202302689. doi: 10.1002/anie.202302689. Epub 2023 May 3.

Authors

Xuerong Zheng^{1

2}, Yanhui Cao¹, Haozhi Wang², Jinfeng Zhang¹, Menghan Zhao¹, Zhong Huang², Yang Wang², Li Zhang³, Yida Deng^{1

2}, Wenbin Hu¹, Xiaopeng Han¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Composite and Functional Materials, Key Laboratory of Advanced Ceramics and Machining Technology (Ministry of Education), Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, P. R. China.
² State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, P. R. China.
³ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science & Technology, Xi'an, 710021, China.

PMID: 36967232
DOI: 10.1002/anie.202302689

Abstract

The sluggish kinetics and mutual interference of oxygen evolution and reduction reactions in the air electrode resulted in large charge/discharge overpotential and low energy efficiency of Zn-air batteries. In this work, we designed a breathing air-electrode configuration in the battery using P-type Ca₃ Co₄ O₉ and N-type CaMnO₃ as charge and discharge thermoelectrocatalysts, respectively. The Seebeck voltages generated from thermoelectric effect of Ca₃ Co₄ O₉ and CaMnO₃ synergistically compensated the charge and discharge overpotentials. The carrier migration and accumulation on the cold surface of Ca₃ Co₄ O₉ and CaMnO₃ optimized the electronic structure of metallic sites and thus enhanced their intrinsic catalytic activity. The oxygen evolution and reduction overpotentials were enhanced by 101 and 90 mV, respectively, at temperature gradient of 200 °C. The breathing Zn-air battery displayed a remarkable energy efficiency of 68.1 %. This work provides an efficient avenue towards utilizing waste heat for improving the energy efficiency of Zn-air battery.

Keywords: Breathing Zn-Air Battery; Energy Efficiency; Seebeck Voltage; Thermoelectrocatalyst.

Abstract

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