Rational
design of bifunctional electrocatalysts to promote the
sluggish kinetics of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution
reaction (OER) remains a fundamental challenge for the application
of zinc-air batteries (ZABs). Herein, we propose a facile and cost-effective
strategy to in situ grow N-doped carbon nanotubes with encapsulated
FeCo alloy nanoparticles on carbon cloths (FeCo/N-CNTs@CC) as a self-supported
air cathode for rechargeable ZABs. The bamboo-like FeCo/N-CNTs@CC
catalyst with high nitrogen content (10.5 atom %) exhibits excellent
electrocatalytic activities, including a half-wave potential of 0.816
V for ORR and an overpotential of 1.638 V for OER at 10 mA cm–2 in alkaline medium. Impressively, the liquid-state
ZAB based on the FeCo/N-CNTs@CC cathode demonstrates a remarkable
power density of 132.0 mW cm–2 and a stable cycling
performance over 65 h. Furthermore, the flexible all-solid-state ZAB
possesses outstanding performance retention under various bending
conditions. The electrocatalyst presented in this work holds great
potential as a self-supported air cathode for practical applications.
Carbon-supported catalysts with atomically dispersed metal sites, also known as “single-atom catalysts (SACs)”, have attracted enormous attention for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) due to their theoretical maximal atom utilization and...
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