A Facile and Scalable Strategy for Fabrication of Superior Bifunctional Freestanding Air Electrodes for Flexible Zinc-Air Batteries

作者：Liu, Ting; Mou, Jirong; Wu, Ziping; Lv, Chao; Huang, Jianlin^*; Liu, Meilin

来源：Advanced Functional Materials, 2020, 30(36): 2003407.

DOI：10.1002/adfm.202003407

• bifunctional catalysts
• carbon nanotube macrofilms
• flexible Zinc-air batteries
• integrated electrodes
• N-doped carbon nanotubes

The large-scale fabrication of efficient and inexpensive bifunctional catalysts is highly desirable but very challenging for oxygen reduction reaction and oxygen evolution reaction (ORR-OER) in metal-air batteries. Here, a facile and scalable approach for the fabrication of hierarchically porous air electrode consisting of cobalt nanoparticles embedded in bamboo-like nitrogen-rich carbon nanotubes (Co/N@CNTs), which are in situ grown onto the surface of carbon nanotube macrofilm (CNMF) through a catalytic growth of crosslinked carbon nanotubes is reported. The resulting hybrid macrofilm (Co/N@CNTs@CNMF) can be directly used as a freestanding air electrode without adding any binder or addivities. More importantly, when incorporated in a zinc-air battery (ZAB), the Co/N@CNTs@CNMF electrode demonstrates drastically enhanced ORR and OER activity while maintaining excellent durability during cycling. Further, when it is used to assemble an all-solid-state ZAB, the cell also displays excellent mechanical flexibility, implying promising perspectives as power sources for wearable electronics.

• 单位
  江西理工大学