Molten salt induced formation of chitosan based carbon nanosheets decorated with CoNx for boosting rechargeable Zn-air batteries

Qiusheng Zhou; Yuan Tian; Mingyuan Wang; Shuangying Lei; Chuanyin Xiong

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.03.126

Molten salt induced formation of chitosan based carbon nanosheets decorated with CoN_x for boosting rechargeable Zn-air batteries

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Jul:641:842-852. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.03.126. Epub 2023 Mar 22.

Authors

Qiusheng Zhou¹, Yuan Tian¹, Mingyuan Wang², Shuangying Lei², Chuanyin Xiong¹

Affiliations

¹ National Demonstration Center for Experimental Light Chemistry Engineering Education, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an 710021, Shaanxi, China.
² SEU-FEI Nano-Pico Center, Key Laboratory of MEMS of Ministry of Education, School of Electrical Science and Engineering, Southeast University, 210096 Nanjing, China.

PMID: 36966573
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.03.126

Abstract

The earth-abundant, low-cost, and efficient oxygen electrode materials offer a potential opportunity to satisfy the large-scale production and application of metal-air batteries. Herein, a molten salt-assisted strategy is developed to anchor transition metal-based active sites via in-situ confining into porous carbon nanosheet. As a result, a chitosan-based porous nitrogen-doped nanosheet decorated with the well-defined CoN_x (CoN_x/CPCN) was reported. Both structural characterization and electrocatalytic mechanisms demonstrate a prominent synergetic effect between CoN_x and porous nitrogen-doped carbon nanosheets forcefully accelerates the sluggish reaction kinetics of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Interestingly, the Zn-air batteries (ZABs) equipped with CoN_x/CPCN-900 as an air electrode shows outstanding durability for 750 discharge/charge cycles, a high power density of 189.9 mW cm^-2, and a high gravimetric energy density of 1018.7 mWh g^-1 at 10 mA cm^-2. Furthermore, the assembled all-solid cell displays exceptional flexibility and power density (122.2 mW cm^-2).

Keywords: Carbon nanosheets; CoN(x) Zn-air battery; Decorated; Flexibility.