Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

“Ship in a Bottle” Design of Highly Efficient Bifunctional Electrocatalysts for Long-Lasting Rechargeable Zn–Air Batteries

2019; American Chemical Society; Volume: 13; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1021/acsnano.9b02315

1936-086X

Zhen Zhang, Ya‐Ping Deng, Zhenyu Xing, Dan Luo, Serubbabel Sy, Zachary P. Cano, Guihua Liu, Yi Jiang, Zhongwei Chen,

Advanced Battery Materials and Technologies

The poor durability of bifunctional oxygen electrocatalysts is one main bottleneck that suppresses the widespread application of rechargeable metal-air batteries. Herein, a "ship in a bottle" design is achieved by impregnating fine transition metal dichalcogenide nanoparticles into defective carbon pores that act as interconnected nanoreactors. The erected 3D porous conductive architecture provides a "highway" for expediting charge and mass transfer. This design not only delivers a high surface-to-volume ratio to increase numbers of exposed catalytic sites but also precludes nanoparticles from aggregation during cycling owing to the pore spatial confinement effect. Therefore, the long-term plague inherent to nanocatalyst stability can be solved. Moreover, the synergistic coupling effects between defect-rich interfaces and chemical bonding derived from heteroatom-doping boost the catalytic activity and prohibit the detachment of nanoparticles for better stability. Consequently, the developed catalyst presents superior bifunctional oxygen electrocatalytic activities and durability, out-performing the best-known noble-metal benchmarks. In a practical application to rechargeable Zn-air batteries, long-term cyclability for over 340 h is realized at a high current density of 25 mA cm-2 in ambient air while retaining an intact structure. Such a universal "ship in a bottle" design offers an appealing and instructive model of nanomaterial engineering for implementation in various fields.