Manganese dioxide is a low-cost catalyst for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in alkaline media. In this paper, the amorphous MnO2 (AMO) was prepared, its characteristics and the effects of mixed with carbon nanotubes (CNTs), doped with silver nanoparticles on catalytic performance were investigated. The experimental results show that the performance of the AMO is slightly worse than that of the β-MnO2, which is possibly caused by the absence of the high catalytic activity (110) surface in the amorphous state. However, the addition of carbon nanotubes significantly improves the catalytic properties of AMO. Furthermore, the nanoscale silver particles doped AMO was prepared and characterized, and it is shown that the AMO/CNTs catalyst with 10 wt% Ag nanoparticles owns the best catalytic performance. Quantum chemical calculation on the ligand effect by electron structure shows that the interaction between Ag and Mn can shift the d-band center of Ag and lower the activation barrier of the O–O bond fracture, while Ag can low the adsorption of O2 for Mn. However, when the Ag content in MnO2 up to 20%, the adsorption will be weakened and the break kinetics of O–O bond will be reduced, which leads to the catalytic effect reduced.

Self-corrosion of aluminum alloy anodes has always been the focus of research on aluminum-air batteries. In this paper, the performance of Al-1.5Mg-0.05Sn-0.01Ga anode in different 4M KOH ethanol-water mixed solutions were investigated. The experiment results show that the mixed solutions are distinctly inhibited anode self-corrosion and the anode utilization rate is improved effectively. The results of molecular dynamics simulation show that the ethanol would reduce the transport of K + and OH − ions, decrease the conductivity of the mixed electrolyte. When the electrolyte contains more than 50% ethanol, the discharge performance of the battery will be rapidly deteriorated.