Hierarchical porous Fe-N/C@surfactant composites synthesized by a surfactant-assisted strategy as high-performance bifunctional oxygen electrodes for rechargeable zinc-air batteries

Wen-Jun Niu; Ru-Ji Li; Wei-Wei Zhao; Ying-Yun Yan; Er-Peng Feng; Jiang-Lei Chen; Bing-Ni Gu; Ming-Jin Liu; Yu-Lun Chueh

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.06.127

Hierarchical porous Fe-N/C@surfactant composites synthesized by a surfactant-assisted strategy as high-performance bifunctional oxygen electrodes for rechargeable zinc-air batteries

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Nov:649:435-444. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.06.127. Epub 2023 Jun 20.

Authors

Wen-Jun Niu¹, Ru-Ji Li², Wei-Wei Zhao², Ying-Yun Yan², Er-Peng Feng³, Jiang-Lei Chen², Bing-Ni Gu⁴, Ming-Jin Liu⁴, Yu-Lun Chueh⁵

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Processing and Recycling of Non-ferrous Metals, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou 730050, PR China. Electronic address: niuwenjun@lut.edu.cn.
² State Key Laboratory of Advanced Processing and Recycling of Non-ferrous Metals, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou 730050, PR China.
³ Key Laboratory of Vacuum Technology and Physics, Lanzhou Institute of Physics, Lanzhou 730000, PR China.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan; Colleage of Semiconductor Research, National Tsing-Hua University, Hsinchu, 30013, Taiwan; Frontier Research Center on Fundamental and Applied Sciences of Matters, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan; Department of Physics, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung 80424, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan; Colleage of Semiconductor Research, National Tsing-Hua University, Hsinchu, 30013, Taiwan; Frontier Research Center on Fundamental and Applied Sciences of Matters, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan; Department of Physics, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung 80424, Taiwan. Electronic address: ylchueh@mx.nthu.edu.tw.

PMID: 37354800
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.06.127

Abstract

Herein, a soft-template strategy involving the cationic surfactants has been successfully applied to size-controlled synthesis of hierarchical porous Fe-N/C for the first time. Specifically, a small amount of Fe and cationic surfactants can be uniformly doped into the zinc-based zeolite imidazole framework (ZIF-8) crystal particles and the cationic surfactants play a critical role in the formation of hierarchically porous Fe-ZIF-8@surfactant precursors. When the Fe-ZIF-8@surfactant is subsequently pyrolyzed, atomically dispersed Fe-N_x coordination structures can be in-situ converted to Fe-N/C, while the cationic surfactants decompose to form a carbon matrix to encapsulate the active sites, thereby preventing the aggregation of nanoparticles to a certain extent. As a result, the combined Fe nanocrystals and atomically dispersed Fe-N_x in the graphitic carbon matrix generate a synergistic effect to boost the electrocatalytic behaviors with a more positive half-wave potential (0.92 V) for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and a lower overpotential (420 mV at 10 mA cm^-2) for oxygen evolution reaction (OER). As a proof of concept, the Fe-N/C@TTAB based zinc-air batteries (ZABs) present an outstanding peak power density (107.9 mW cm^-2) and a superior specific capacity (706.3 mAh g^-1) with robust cycling stability over 900 cycles for 150 h, which are better than the commercial Pt/C + IrO₂ based ZABs.

Keywords: Cationic surfactants; Fe-N/C@surfactant composites; Oxygen evolution reaction; Oxygen reduction reaction; Zinc-air batteries.