Tunable Heterogeneous FeCo Alloy-Mo0.82N Bifunctional Electrocatalysts for Temperature-Adapted Zn-Air Batteries

Wenxian Liu; Xinxin Niu; Jinxiu Feng; Ruilian Yin; Suli Ma; Wenbin Que; Jiale Dai; Jiawei Tang; Fangfang Wu; Wenhui Shi; Xijun Liu; Xiehong Cao

doi:10.1021/acsami.2c21616

Tunable Heterogeneous FeCo Alloy-Mo_0.82N Bifunctional Electrocatalysts for Temperature-Adapted Zn-Air Batteries

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2023 Mar 29;15(12):15344-15352. doi: 10.1021/acsami.2c21616. Epub 2023 Mar 15.

Authors

Wenxian Liu¹, Xinxin Niu¹, Jinxiu Feng¹, Ruilian Yin², Suli Ma², Wenbin Que¹, Jiale Dai¹, Jiawei Tang¹, Fangfang Wu¹, Wenhui Shi³, Xijun Liu⁴, Xiehong Cao¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Materials Science & Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, P. R. China.
² College of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, P. R. China.
³ Center for Membrane and Water Science & Technology, College of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, P. R. China.
⁴ MOE Key Laboratory of New Processing Technology for Non-Ferrous Metals and Materials, School of Resource, Environments and Materials, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, P. R. China.

PMID: 36920344
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c21616

Abstract

The practical applications of temperature-tolerant Zn-air batteries (ZABs) rely on highly active and stable bifunctional catalysts that accelerate cathodic oxygen reduction (ORR) and oxygen evolution (OER) reactions. Herein, we successfully integrated fascinating transition metal nitrides and FeCo alloys through a simple coordination assembly and pyrolysis process. Importantly, the alloy-to-nitride ratio in the heterogeneous catalyst can be carefully regulated through the subsequent etching process. Moreover, the composition-dependent ORR/OER performance of the FeCo-Mo_0.82N catalysts was revealed. Aqueous ZABs using the optimized FeCo-Mo_0.82N-60 as a cathode exhibit a high peak power density of 149.7 mW cm^-2 and an impressive stability of 600 h with a low charge-discharge voltage gap decay rate of 0.025 mV h^-1, which exceeds those of most of recent reports. Furthermore, the FeCo-Mo_0.82N-60-based flexible ZABs display a small specific capacity degradation (3%) from 40 to -10 °C, demonstrating excellent temperature tolerance.

Keywords: Zn−air batteries; alloy; electrocatalysis; nitride; oxygen reduction reaction.