Developing nitrogen and Co/Fe/Ni multi-doped carbon nanotubes as high-performance bifunctional catalyst for rechargeable zinc-air battery

Authors：Chen, Di; Li, Guofu; Chen, Xing; Zhang, Qian; Sui, Jing; Li, Chengjie; Zhang, Yingchao; Hu, Jing; Yu, Jianhua^*; Yu, Liyan^*; Dong, Lifeng^*

Source：Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 2021, 593: 204-213.

DOI：10.1016/j.jcis.2021.02.115

• Dicyandiamide formaldehyde resin
• Carbon nanotubes
• Metal-nitrogen-carbon
• FeNi nanoparticles
• Bifunctional catalyst
• Zn-air battery

Rational construction of advanced bifunctional catalysts with dual-active-sites is still challenging for both oxygen reduction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reactions (OER). Herein, metal-doped dicyandiamide formaldehyde resin is innovatively exploited to synthesize N/Co/Fe/Ni multi-doped carbon nanotubes (denoted as CoFeNi@CNT) with metal-nitrogen-carbon (M-N-C) and CoFeNi nanoparticles as the ORR and OER active sites, respectively. Abundant active sites and high degree of graphitization enable CoFeNi@CNT with a high ORR half-wave potential of 0.82 V and a low OER overpotential of 440 mV at 10 mA cm(-2), which are comparable or superior to noble-metal catalysts. Particularly, the CoFeNi@CNT air electrode of rechargeable Zn-air batteries shows remarkable open circuit potential (1.46 V), discharge power density (152.3 mW cm(-2)), specific capacity (814 mAh g(-1)), and cycling stability for more than 250 h. It is worth emphasizing that this synthesis strategy is rather simple, low-cost, high yield, and the proportion and amount of doped metal ions can be easily adjusted according to the needs for different applications.

• Institution
  潍坊学院