Ionic Polyimide Derived Porous Carbon Nanosheets as High-Efficiency Oxygen Reduction Catalysts for Zn-Air Batteries

Kejun Tu; Lingyi Zou; Chongqing Yang; Yuezeng Su; Chenbao Lu; Jinhui Zhu; Fan Zhang; Changchun Ke; Xiaodong Zhuang

doi:10.1002/chem.201904769

Ionic Polyimide Derived Porous Carbon Nanosheets as High-Efficiency Oxygen Reduction Catalysts for Zn-Air Batteries

Chemistry. 2020 May 20;26(29):6525-6534. doi: 10.1002/chem.201904769. Epub 2020 Jan 28.

Authors

Kejun Tu^{1

2}, Lingyi Zou², Chongqing Yang², Yuezeng Su¹, Chenbao Lu², Jinhui Zhu², Fan Zhang², Changchun Ke³, Xiaodong Zhuang^{2

4}

Affiliations

¹ School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, P. R. China.
² The Meso-Entropy Matter Lab, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Thermal Aging, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, P. R. China.
³ School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, P. R. China.
⁴ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Environmentally Friendly Polymeric Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Changzhou University, Changzhou, 213164, P. R. China.

PMID: 31788872
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201904769

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) porous carbon nanosheets (2DPCs) have attracted great attention for their good porosity and long-distance conductivity. Factors such as templates, precursors, and carbonization-activation methods, directly determine their performance. However, rational design and preparation of porous carbon materials with controlled 2D morphology and heteroatom dopants remains a challenge. Therefore, an ionic polyimide with both sp² - and sp³ -hybridized nitrogen atoms was prepared as a precursor for fabricating N-doped hexagonal porous carbon nanosheets through a hard-template approach. Because of the large surface area and efficient charge-mass transport, the resulting activated 2D porous carbon nanosheets (2DPCs-a) displayed promising electrocatalytic properties for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in alkaline and acidic media, such as ultralow half-wave potential (0.83 vs. 0.84 V of Pt/C) and superior limiting current density (5.42 vs. 5.14 mA cm^-2 of Pt/C). As air cathodes in Zn-air batteries, the as-developed 2DPCs-a exhibited long stability and high capacity (up to 614 mA h g^-1 ), which are both higher than those of commercial Pt/C. This work provides a convenient method for controllable and scalable 2DPCs fabrication as well as new opportunities to develop high-efficiency electrocatalysts for ORR and Zn-air batteries.

Keywords: Zn-air battery; ionic polyimides; oxygen reduction reaction; porous carbon nanosheets.

Abstract

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