Cauliflower‐Like Hierarchical Porous Nickel/Nickel Ferrite/Carbon Composite as Superior Bifunctional Catalyst for Lithium‐Air Battery

Abstract

Rational design of cost‐effective oxygen electrode catalysts for metal‐air batteries is indispensable for developing next‐generation energy storage devices especially to use in electric vehicles. In this work, non‐precious Nickel/Nickel Ferrite on carbon matrix (NNFOC) nanocomposite as bifunctional air‐breathing electrode for rechargeable Li‐air battery is proposed. The NNFOC composite on rotating ring disc electrode (RRDE) exhibited good oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activities. The synergistic contribution from Ni, nickel ferrite and porous carbon network that resulted more reaction sites, high conductivity and fast diffusion pathways, lead to enhanced ORR and OER activities. The CR‐2032 coin‐type and conventional split cell Li‐air battery were fabricated using the NNFOC composite as air‐breathing oxygen electrode and lithium metal as anode. The open‐circuit voltage of the coin cell was invariant for more than 5 days, while the split cell exhibited high discharge capacity of 3820 mAh g‐1 at a current density of 50 mA g‐1. The charged split cell could power a commercial 2.8 V LED bulb for more than 5 h continuously.

Porous Carbon Networks Decorated with Cobalt on CoFe2O4 as an Air‐Breathing Electrode for High‐Capacity Rechargeable Lithium‐Air Batteries: Role of Metallic Cobalt Nanoparticles

“…The d‐spacing value of 0.33 nm is ascribed to (002) plane of the carbon as per the JCPDS card No. 75‐1621 . The other d‐spacings are indexed to either Co (JCPDS PDF # 15‐0806) or CoFe 2 O 4 (JCPDS PDF # 22‐1086) .…”

“…Bian et al., examined the bifunctional activity of hydrothermally‐synthesized CoFe 2 O 4 ‐graphene composite . Athika et al., developed a hierarchical porous Ni/NiFe 2 O 4 /C as a bifunctional electrocatalyst towards ORR/OER process . CoFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles‐anchored N/S co‐doped mesoporous carbon spheres synthesized by template‐assisted pyrolysis followed by hydrothermal method demonstrated to be good ORR activity .…”

Review and Recent Advances of Oxygen Transfer in Li‐air Batteries

“…Athika et al [75] . proposed the nanocomposite material with Non‐Precious Nickel/Nickel Ferrite on carbon matrix as the porous electrode of rechargeable Li‐air batteries (as shown in Figure 13).…”

Vacancy‐induced LaMnO3 Perovskite as Bifunctional Air‐breathing Electrode for Rechargeable Lithium‐Air Battery

“…Transition‐metal oxides and their derivatives have attracted recently as ORR/OER electrocatalysts due to their high abundance, low cost, environmental friendliness and tunable electrochemical activity [7] . Very recently, we have examined the electrochemical activity of each of Ni/NiFe 2 O 4 @carbon and Co/CoFe 2 O 4 @carbon as air‐breathing cathode for Li‐O 2 battery which exhibited discharge capacity of 3820 and 4320 mAh g −1 [8,9] …”

“…[7] Very recently, we have examined the electrochemical activity of each of Ni/NiFe 2 O 4 @carbon and Co/ CoFe 2 O 4 @carbon as air-breathing cathode for Li-O 2 battery which exhibited discharge capacity of 3820 and 4320 mAh g À 1 . [8,9] Perovskite metal-oxides also have several attractive features such as good thermal stability, tunable electronic structure, conductivity, high catalytic activity, redox features etc. which are highly required for the electrochemical applications.…”