Volume 1, 2023

OER highly active encapsulants to improve the electrochemical anticorrosion of Fe–N–C for ultralong-lifespan and high-rate rechargeable zinc–air batteries

Abstract

Fe–N–C has been exploited as a promising oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalyst. However, carbon corrosion and corresponding coordination structure destruction inevitably happen upon exposure at high potentials. Even under low potentials, the byproduct peroxide generated in 2-electron ORR processes produces radicals such as ˙OH and ˙OOH with Fe-center allies via Fenton-like reactions to destroy catalyst structures. In this work, we designed a composite, wherein each N-doped carbon nanotube with Fe nanoparticles encapsulated in the Fe-NCNT is uniformly and tightly wrapped by vertically grown NiFe-layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanosheets. During the charging process of Zn–air batteries (ZABs), the external NiFe-LDH preferentially catalyzes oxygen evolution reactions (OERs), and thus the internal Fe-NCNT could simply act as a carbon skeleton to transfer electrons. Moreover, the Fe-NCNT@NiFe-LDH displays a strikingly high peroxide disproportionation rate and superior electrocatalytic activities towards peroxide reduction and oxidation reactions. Thus, the radical corrosion is enormously reduced. The Fe-NCNT@NiFe-LDH delivers a record-refresh overpotential difference of 0.52 V, surpassing that of recently reported state-of-the-art bifunctional oxygen electrocatalysts. The composite-based ZABs demonstrate long discharging/charging lifespans and excellent rate performances, e.g. over 5000 cycles (near 1743 h) at 50 mA cm−2.

Graphical abstract: OER highly active encapsulants to improve the electrochemical anticorrosion of Fe–N–C for ultralong-lifespan and high-rate rechargeable zinc–air batteries

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Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
07 Jul 2023
Accepted
27 Jul 2023
First published
29 Jul 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

EES. Catal., 2023,1, 987-997

OER highly active encapsulants to improve the electrochemical anticorrosion of Fe–N–C for ultralong-lifespan and high-rate rechargeable zinc–air batteries

J. Li, N. Huang, M. Lv, N. Su, C. Li, Y. Huang, Y. Wang, Y. Zheng, W. Liu, T. Ma and L. Ye, EES. Catal., 2023, 1, 987 DOI: 10.1039/D3EY00160A

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