Atomic layer deposited nickel sulfide for bifunctional oxygen evolution/reduction electrocatalysis and zinc-air batteries

Shihan Yan; Hao Li; Jiahao Zhu; Wei Xiong; Renbo Lei; Xinwei Wang

doi:10.1088/1361-6528/abf26f

Atomic layer deposited nickel sulfide for bifunctional oxygen evolution/reduction electrocatalysis and zinc-air batteries

Nanotechnology. 2021 Apr 14;32(27). doi: 10.1088/1361-6528/abf26f.

Authors

Shihan Yan¹, Hao Li¹, Jiahao Zhu¹, Wei Xiong¹, Renbo Lei¹, Xinwei Wang¹

Affiliation

¹ School of Advanced Materials, Shenzhen Graduate School, Peking University, Shenzhen, People's Republic of China.

PMID: 33770782
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6528/abf26f

Abstract

Rechargeable Zn-air batteries are a promising type of metal-air batteries for high-density energy storage. However, their practical use is limited by the use of costly noble-metal electrocatalysts for the sluggish kinetics of the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) occurred at the air electrode of the Zn-air batteries. This work reports a new non-precious bifunctional OER/ORR electrocatalyst of NiS_x/carbon nanotubes (CNTs), which is made by atomic layer deposition (ALD) of nickel sulfide (NiS_x) on CNTs, for the applications for the air electrode of the Zn-air batteries. The NiS_x/CNT electrocatalyst on a carbon cloth electrode exhibits a low OER overpotential of 288 mV to reach 10 mA cm^-2in current density, and the electrocatalyst on a rotating disk electrode exhibits a half-wave ORR potential of 0.81 V in alkaline electrolyte. With the use of the NiS_x/CNT electrocatalyst for the air electrode, the fabricated aqueous rechargeable Zn-air batteries show a fairly good maximum output power density of 110 mW cm^-2, which highlights the great promise of the ALD NiS_x/CNT electrocatalyst for Zn-air batteries.

Keywords: Zn−air batteries; atomic layer deposition; nickel sulfide.