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Hierarchical peony-like FeCo-NC with conductive network and highly active sites as efficient electrocatalyst for rechargeable Zn-air battery

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Abstract

Carbon materials featuring hierarchical pores and atomically dispersed metal sites are promising catalysts for energy storage and conversion applications. Herein, we developed a facile strategy to construct functional carbon materials with a fluffy peony-like structure and dense binary FeCo-Nx active sites (termed as f-FeCo-CNT). By regulating the metal content in precursors, a three-dimensional (3D) interconnected conductive carbon nanotubes network was in-situ formed throughout the atomically dispersed FeCo-NC matrix during pyrolysis. Taking advantage of rich pore hierarchy and co-existence of highly active FeCo-Nx sites and beneficial FeCo alloy nanoparticles, the f-FeCo-CNT material exhibited excellent bifunctional performance towards oxygen reduction reaction/oxygen evolution reactions (ORR/OER) with respect to the atomically dispersed FeCo-NC (SA-f-FeCo-NC) and commercial Pt/C+RuO2 mixture, surpassing the SA-f-FeCo-NC with a 20 mV higher ORR half-wave potential and a 100 mV lower OER overpotential (at 10.0 mA/cm2). Remarkably, the f-FeCo-CNT-assembled Zn-air battery (ZAB) possessed a maximum specific power of 195.8 mW/cm2, excellent rate capability, and very good cycling stability at large current density of 20.0 mA/cm2. This work provides a facile and feasible synthetic strategy of constructing low-cost cathode materials with excellent comprehensive ZAB performance.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21701101), the National Key Research and Development Project (Nos. 2018YFE0118200 and 2016YFF0204402), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 18CX06063A), the Long-Term Subsidy Mechanism from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Education of China, the Shandong Key Research and Development Project (No. 2019JZZY010506), the Shandong Scientific Research Awards Foundation for Outstanding Young Scientists (No. ZR2018JL010), the Shandong Joint Fund of Outstanding Young Talents (No. ZR2017BB018), the Scientific Research Foundation of Shandong University of Science and Technology for Recruited Talents (No. 2017RCJJ059), and the Program for Tsingtao Al-ion Power and Energy-Storage Battery Research Team in the University (No. 17-2-1-1-zhc).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, 266580, China

    Yiyan Wang, Mang Ma, Yu Wang, Ying Zhang, Xiaoming Sun & Zifeng Yan

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266590, China

    Guoxin Zhang

  3. Department of Chemistry, Institute of Humanities and applied Science, GLA University, Mathura, 281406, India

    Anuj Kumar & Yin Jia

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  1. Yiyan Wang
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Hierarchical peony-like FeCo-NC with conductive network and highly active sites as efficient electrocatalyst for rechargeable Zn-air battery

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Wang, Y., Kumar, A., Ma, M. et al. Hierarchical peony-like FeCo-NC with conductive network and highly active sites as efficient electrocatalyst for rechargeable Zn-air battery. Nano Res. 13, 1090–1099 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2751-7

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