TY - JOUR
T1 - Energy barrier engineering of oxygen reduction reaction synergistically promoted by binary Zn-Cu pair sites for advanced Zn–air batteries
AU - Qian, Mancai
AU - Guo, Man
AU - Qu, Yuan
AU - Xu, Meijiao
AU - Liu, Datai
AU - Hou, Cheng
AU - Isimjan, Tayirjan T.
AU - Yang, Xiulin
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2022-04-21
Acknowledgements: 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)
PY - 2022/3/16
Y1 - 2022/3/16
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/676346
UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0925838822009185
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85126542685&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jallcom.2022.164527
DO - 10.1016/j.jallcom.2022.164527
M3 - Article
SN - 0925-8388
VL - 907
SP - 164527
JO - Journal of Alloys and Compounds
JF - Journal of Alloys and Compounds
ER -