Developing nitrogen and Co/Fe/Ni multi-doped carbon nanotubes as high-performance bifunctional catalyst for rechargeable zinc-air battery

Di Chen; Guofu Li; Xing Chen; Qian Zhang; Jing Sui; Chengjie Li; Yingchao Zhang; Jing Hu; Jianhua Yu; Liyan Yu; Lifeng Dong

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2021.02.115

Developing nitrogen and Co/Fe/Ni multi-doped carbon nanotubes as high-performance bifunctional catalyst for rechargeable zinc-air battery

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2021 Jul:593:204-213. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.02.115. Epub 2021 Mar 9.

Authors

Di Chen¹, Guofu Li¹, Xing Chen², Qian Zhang², Jing Sui³, Chengjie Li⁴, Yingchao Zhang⁵, Jing Hu⁵, Jianhua Yu⁶, Liyan Yu⁷, Lifeng Dong⁸

Affiliations

¹ College of Materials Science and Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266042, PR China; Shandong Engineering Research Center of Green and High-value Marine Fine Chemical, Weifang University of Science and Technology, Shouguang 262700, PR China.
² College of Materials Science and Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266042, PR China.
³ College of Materials Science and Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266042, PR China; Key Laboratory of Fuel Cell Technology of Guangdong Province, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, PR China.
⁴ Shandong Engineering Research Center of Green and High-value Marine Fine Chemical, Weifang University of Science and Technology, Shouguang 262700, PR China; Key Laboratory of Fuel Cell Technology of Guangdong Province, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, PR China.
⁵ Shandong Engineering Research Center of Green and High-value Marine Fine Chemical, Weifang University of Science and Technology, Shouguang 262700, PR China.
⁶ College of Materials Science and Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266042, PR China. Electronic address: jianhuayu@qust.edu.cn.
⁷ College of Materials Science and Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266042, PR China. Electronic address: liyanyu@qust.edu.cn.
⁸ College of Materials Science and Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266042, PR China; Department of Physics, Hamline University, St. Paul 55104, USA. Electronic address: ldong03@hamline.edu.

PMID: 33744531
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.02.115

Abstract

Rational construction of advanced bifunctional catalysts with dual-active-sites is still challenging for both oxygen reduction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reactions (OER). Herein, metal-doped dicyandiamide formaldehyde resin is innovatively exploited to synthesize N/Co/Fe/Ni multi-doped carbon nanotubes (denoted as CoFeNi@CNT) with metal-nitrogen-carbon (MNC) and CoFeNi nanoparticles as the ORR and OER active sites, respectively. Abundant active sites and high degree of graphitization enable CoFeNi@CNT with a high ORR half-wave potential of 0.82 V and a low OER overpotential of 440 mV at 10 mA cm^-2, which are comparable or superior to noble-metal catalysts. Particularly, the CoFeNi@CNT air electrode of rechargeable Zn-air batteries shows remarkable open circuit potential (1.46 V), discharge power density (152.3 mW cm^-2), specific capacity (814 mAh g^-1), and cycling stability for more than 250 h. It is worth emphasizing that this synthesis strategy is rather simple, low-cost, high yield, and the proportion and amount of doped metal ions can be easily adjusted according to the needs for different applications.

Keywords: Bifunctional catalyst; Carbon nanotubes; Dicyandiamide formaldehyde resin; FeNi nanoparticles; Metal-nitrogen-carbon; Zn-air battery.