Nitrogen-Doped Cobalt Pyrite Yolk-Shell Hollow Spheres for Long-Life Rechargeable Zn-Air Batteries

Xue Feng Lu; Song Lin Zhang; Enbo Shangguan; Peng Zhang; Shuyan Gao; Xiong Wen David Lou

doi:10.1002/advs.202001178

Nitrogen-Doped Cobalt Pyrite Yolk-Shell Hollow Spheres for Long-Life Rechargeable Zn-Air Batteries

Adv Sci (Weinh). 2020 Oct 13;7(22):2001178. doi: 10.1002/advs.202001178. eCollection 2020 Nov.

Authors

Xue Feng Lu¹, Song Lin Zhang¹, Enbo Shangguan², Peng Zhang¹, Shuyan Gao², Xiong Wen David Lou¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Nanyang Technological University 62 Nanyang Drive Singapore 637459 Singapore.
² School of Materials Science and Engineering Henan Normal University Xinxiang Henan 453007 P. R. China.

Abstract

Limited by the sluggish four-electron transfer process, designing high-performance nonprecious electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is urgently desired for efficient rechargeable Zn-air batteries (ZABs). Herein, the successful synthesis of porous nitrogen-doped cobalt pyrite yolk-shell nanospheres (N-CoS₂ YSSs) is reported. Benefiting from the abundant porosity of the porous yolk-shell structure and unique electronic properties by nitrogen doping, the as-prepared N-CoS₂ YSSs possess more exposed active surface, thus giving rise to superior activity for reversible oxygen electrocatalysis and outstanding cycling stability (more than 165 h at 10 mA cm^-2) in ZABs, exceeding the commercial Pt/C and RuO₂ hybrid catalysts. Moreover, the assembled ZABs, delivering a specific capacity of 640 mAh g_Zn ^-1, can be used for practical devices. This work provides a novel tactic to engineer sulfides as high efficiency and promising bifunctional oxygen electrocatalysts for advanced metal-air batteries.

Keywords: Zn–air batteries; cobalt pyrite; nitrogen doping; oxygen electrocatalysis; yolk–shell materials.