Photo Energy-Enhanced Oxygen Reduction and Evolution Kinetics in Zn-Air Batteries

Hange Feng; Chaomin Zhang; Menghao Luo; Yuechuan Hu; Zibo Dong; Shaolin Xue; Paul K Chu

doi:10.1021/acsami.2c19598

Photo Energy-Enhanced Oxygen Reduction and Evolution Kinetics in Zn-Air Batteries

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2023 Feb 8;15(5):6788-6796. doi: 10.1021/acsami.2c19598. Epub 2023 Jan 26.

Authors

Hange Feng^{1

2}, Chaomin Zhang³, Menghao Luo², Yuechuan Hu², Zibo Dong², Shaolin Xue^{2

4}, Paul K Chu⁵

Affiliations

¹ College of Information Science and Technology, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, P.R. China.
² College of Science, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, P.R. China.
³ School of Mathematics, Physics and Statistics, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai 201620, China.
⁴ Shanghai Institute of Intelligent Electronics and Systems, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China.
⁵ Department of Physics, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Department of Biomedical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon 999077 Hong Kong, China.

PMID: 36701643
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c19598

Abstract

Harvesting solar energy directly to boost the sluggish kinetics of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) on an air cathode is a promising approach. Herein, we synthesize a step-scheme (S-scheme) titanium dioxide-indium selenide (TiO₂-In₂Se₃) heterojunction catalyst. The onset potential in ORR under light illumination reaches 1.28 V and the onset potential decreases to 0.48 V in OER. When an S-scheme TiO₂-In₂Se₃ heterojunction is exposed to light, photogenerated electrons at the conduction band (CB) of TiO₂ migrate to the valence band (VB) of In₂Se₃ due to the built-in electric field. The photogenerated electrons with strong reduction capability on the CB of In₂Se₃ and the holes with strong oxidation capability on the VB of TiO₂ boost the cathode reaction kinetics (ORR/OER). The excellent outcome reveals tremendous commercial potential of photo-enhanced Zn-air batteries.

Keywords: S-scheme heterojunction; Zn-air batteries; oxygen evolution reaction; oxygen reduction reaction; photo-introduced.