Tuning active sites for highly efficient bifunctional oxygen electrocatalysts of rechargeable zinc-air battery

Xuhui Li; Yanpin Liu; Haifei Xu; Yangfan Zhou; Xinbing Chen; Zhongwei An; Yu Chen; Pei Chen

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.148

Tuning active sites for highly efficient bifunctional oxygen electrocatalysts of rechargeable zinc-air battery

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Jun 15:640:549-557. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.148. Epub 2023 Mar 2.

Authors

Xuhui Li¹, Yanpin Liu¹, Haifei Xu¹, Yangfan Zhou¹, Xinbing Chen², Zhongwei An¹, Yu Chen¹, Pei Chen³

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Applied Surface and Colloid Chemistry (MOE), International Joint Research Center of Shaanxi Province for Photoelectric Materials Science, Shaanxi, Shaanxi Engineering Laboratory for Advanced Energy Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710119, PR China.
² Key Laboratory of Applied Surface and Colloid Chemistry (MOE), International Joint Research Center of Shaanxi Province for Photoelectric Materials Science, Shaanxi, Shaanxi Engineering Laboratory for Advanced Energy Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710119, PR China. Electronic address: chenxinbing@snnu.edu.cn.
³ Key Laboratory of Applied Surface and Colloid Chemistry (MOE), International Joint Research Center of Shaanxi Province for Photoelectric Materials Science, Shaanxi, Shaanxi Engineering Laboratory for Advanced Energy Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710119, PR China. Electronic address: chenpei@snnu.edu.cn.

PMID: 36878072
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.148

Abstract

High activity, excellent durability, and low-cost oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) bifunctional catalysts are highly required for rechargeable zinc (Zn)-air batteries. Herein, we designed an electrocatalyst by integrating the ORR active species of ferroferric oxide (Fe₃O₄) and the OER active species of cobaltous oxide (CoO) into the carbon nanoflower. By well regulating and controlling the synthesis parameters, Fe₃O₄ and CoO nanoparticles were uniformly inserted into the porous carbon nanoflower. This electrocatalyst can reduce the potential gap between the ORR and OER to 0.79 V. The Zn-air battery assembled with it exhibited an open-circuit voltage of 1.457 V, a stable discharge of 98 h, a high specific capacity of 740 mA h g^-1, a large power density of 137 mW cm^-2, as well as good charge/discharge cycling performance, exceeding the performance of platinum/carbon (Pt/C). This work provides references for exploring highly efficient non-noble metal oxygen electrocatalysts by tuning ORR/OER active sites.

Keywords: Bifunctional electrocatalyst; Carbon nanoflower; Fe(3)O(4) and CoO; Oxygen evolution reaction; Oxygen reduction reaction; Zinc-air batteries.