Cobalt-nickel alloys supported on Ti4O7 and embedded in N, S doped carbon nanofibers as an efficient and stable bifunctional catalyst for Zn-air batteries

Heming Huang; Yangjun Luo; Li Zhang; Huijuan Zhang; Yu Wang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2022.10.047

Cobalt-nickel alloys supported on Ti₄O₇ and embedded in N, S doped carbon nanofibers as an efficient and stable bifunctional catalyst for Zn-air batteries

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Jan 15;630(Pt A):763-771. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.10.047. Epub 2022 Oct 17.

Authors

Heming Huang¹, Yangjun Luo², Li Zhang¹, Huijuan Zhang³, Yu Wang⁴

Affiliations

¹ The School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Power Transmission Equipment & System Security and New Technology, Chongqing University, 174 Shazheng Street, Shapingba District, Chongqing City 400044, PR China.
² The School of Electrical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, PR China.
³ The School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Power Transmission Equipment & System Security and New Technology, Chongqing University, 174 Shazheng Street, Shapingba District, Chongqing City 400044, PR China. Electronic address: zhanghj@cqu.edu.cn.
⁴ The School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Power Transmission Equipment & System Security and New Technology, Chongqing University, 174 Shazheng Street, Shapingba District, Chongqing City 400044, PR China; The School of Electrical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, PR China. Electronic address: wangy@cqu.edu.cn.

PMID: 36279837
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.10.047

Abstract

Transition metal catalysts for replacing noble metals have been extensively studied, but the deficiencies in intrinsic activity and stability limit their application in electrocatalysis. Here, we present CoNi alloy nanoparticles loaded on Ti₄O₇ supports and embedded in N, S doped carbon nanofibers by electrospinning method. The prepared CoNi/Ti₄O₇@NS-CNFs exhibits satisfactory ORR and OER activities with a low potential gap of 0.664 V and shows a high stability over long periods of testing, which are superior to most of the transition metal catalysts reported so far. Accordingly, the Zn-air battery constructed with the prepared catalyst demonstrates a maximum power density of 165.7 mW cm^-2 and a specific capacity of 788.4 mA h g_Zn^-1 (1.61 and 1.14 times higher than that of Pt/C + IrO₂, respectively). The addition of S element and corrosion-resistant Ti₄O₇ plays a significant part in the morphology and activity of the prepared catalyst, which optimizes the distribution and electronic structure of active centers, and improves the stability of the catalyst. This effort provides a possible approach to exploring the efficient performance of the other transition metals.

Keywords: Dispersed active centers; Electronic regulation; Ti(4)O(7); Zn-air battery.