Energy barrier engineering of oxygen reduction reaction synergistically promoted by binary Zn-Cu pair sites for advanced Zn–air batteries
Type
ArticleKAUST Department
Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955–6900, Saudi ArabiaKAUST Solar Center (KSC)
Date
2022-03-16Embargo End Date
2024-03-16Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/676346
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Reducing the oxygen adsorption energy barrier is vital to accelerate the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Herein, we report a mesoporous cake-like structured Zn-N/Cu-N electrocatalyst (ZnCu-N-C) with robust electrocatalytic performance and exceptional durability in 0.1 M KOH solution. The mesoporous cake-like structure is promising to expose more active sites. Extended X-ray absorption fine spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirmed the existence of M-Nx (M = Zn, Cu). More importantly, the density functional theory (DFT) calculations corroborate that the Zn-N/Cu-N dual active center can reduce the oxygen adsorption energy barrier. Therefore, the optimized ZnCu-N-C electrocatalyst is ahead of commercial Pt/C (20 wt%) in all aspects. Moreover, the ZnCu-N-C-based Zn–air batteries exhibit outstanding long-term stability of 240 cycles, a large power density of 156.2 mW cm−2, and a high specific capacity of 732.7 mA h g−1. This work may provide new guidance for the rational design of cathode catalysts in Zn-air batteries.Citation
Qian, M., Guo, M., Qu, Y., Xu, M., Liu, D., Hou, C., Isimjan, T. T., & Yang, X. (2022). Energy barrier engineering of oxygen reduction reaction synergistically promoted by binary Zn-Cu pair sites for advanced Zn–air batteries. Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 907, 164527. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2022.164527Sponsors
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no.21965005), Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Province (2018GXNSFAA294077, 2021GXNSFAA076001), Project of High-Level Talents of Guangxi (F-KA18015), and Guangxi Technology Base and Talent Subject (GUIKE AD18126001, GUIKE AD20297039)Publisher
Elsevier BVJournal
Journal of Alloys and CompoundsAdditional Links
https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0925838822009185ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1016/j.jallcom.2022.164527