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Nano Research 2023, 16(4): 4980-4986 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-5197-2
Research Article | Issue | Published: 07 December 2022

Construction of ultra-stable NiFe armored catalyst for liquid and flexible quasi-solid-state rechargeable Zn–air batteries

Show Author's Information Hanqin Sun1,§,  Meiqi Zhao1,§,  Chao Ma2,§,  Wen Chen1,  Yong Yang3( ),  Yunhu Han1,4,5( )
Frontiers Science Center for Flexible Electronics, Xi’an Institute of Flexible Electronics (IFE) and Xi’an Institute of Biomedical Materials & Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, China
Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, China
State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou 350002, China
Key Laboratory for Organic Electronics and Information Displays & Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210023, China
Hanqin Sun, Meiqi Zhao, and Chao Ma contributed equally to this work.
Keywords:
bifunctional oxygen electrocatalyst, outstanding durability, liquid Zn–air batteries, flexible quasi-solid-state Zn–air batteries
Topics:
Zinc air batteries
Cite this article:
Sun H, Zhao M, Ma C, et al. Construction of ultra-stable NiFe armored catalyst for liquid and flexible quasi-solid-state rechargeable Zn–air batteries. Nano Research, 2023, 16(4): 4980-4986. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-5197-2
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

The commercial application of non-precious metal-based electrocatalysts is not only limited by the intrinsic activity of the catalysts, but also the stability of the catalysts is extremely important. Herein, we fabricated an ultra-stable NiFe armored catalyst (Ar-NiFe/NC) by a simple secondary pyrolysis strategy. The as-obtained Ar-NiFe/NC electrocatalyst exhibits an excellent bifunctional oxygen electrocatalytic performance with an activity indicator ∆E of 0.74 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). More importantly, the Ar-NiFe/NC electrocatalyst also shows a remarkable operational and storage stability. After accelerated durability test (ADT) cycles, no obvious degradation of oxygen electrocatalytic performance could be observed. In addition, the Ar-NiFe/NC electrocatalyst still exhibits an unbated oxygen electrocatalytic performance comparable to fresh catalysts after three months of air-exposed storage. The assembled liquid and flexible quasi-solid-state rechargeable Zn–air batteries with the Ar-NiFe/NC electrocatalyst exhibit impressive performance. The liquid rechargeable Zn–air batteries possess a high open-circuit voltage (OCV) of 1.43 V and a salient peak power density of 146.40 mW·cm−2, while the flexible quasi-solid-state rechargeable Zn–air batteries also exhibit an excellent OCV of 1.60 V and an exciting peak power density of 41.99 mW·cm−2.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Construction of ultra-stable NiFe armored catalyst for liquid and flexible quasi-solid-state rechargeable Zn–air batteries

Show Author's information Hanqin Sun1,§, Meiqi Zhao1,§, Chao Ma2,§, Wen Chen1, Yong Yang3( ), Yunhu Han1,4,5( )
Frontiers Science Center for Flexible Electronics, Xi’an Institute of Flexible Electronics (IFE) and Xi’an Institute of Biomedical Materials & Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, China
Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, China
State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou 350002, China
Key Laboratory for Organic Electronics and Information Displays & Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210023, China
Hanqin Sun, Meiqi Zhao, and Chao Ma contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

The commercial application of non-precious metal-based electrocatalysts is not only limited by the intrinsic activity of the catalysts, but also the stability of the catalysts is extremely important. Herein, we fabricated an ultra-stable NiFe armored catalyst (Ar-NiFe/NC) by a simple secondary pyrolysis strategy. The as-obtained Ar-NiFe/NC electrocatalyst exhibits an excellent bifunctional oxygen electrocatalytic performance with an activity indicator ∆E of 0.74 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). More importantly, the Ar-NiFe/NC electrocatalyst also shows a remarkable operational and storage stability. After accelerated durability test (ADT) cycles, no obvious degradation of oxygen electrocatalytic performance could be observed. In addition, the Ar-NiFe/NC electrocatalyst still exhibits an unbated oxygen electrocatalytic performance comparable to fresh catalysts after three months of air-exposed storage. The assembled liquid and flexible quasi-solid-state rechargeable Zn–air batteries with the Ar-NiFe/NC electrocatalyst exhibit impressive performance. The liquid rechargeable Zn–air batteries possess a high open-circuit voltage (OCV) of 1.43 V and a salient peak power density of 146.40 mW·cm−2, while the flexible quasi-solid-state rechargeable Zn–air batteries also exhibit an excellent OCV of 1.60 V and an exciting peak power density of 41.99 mW·cm−2.

Keywords: bifunctional oxygen electrocatalyst, outstanding durability, liquid Zn–air batteries, flexible quasi-solid-state Zn–air batteries

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Publication history

Received: 05 September 2022
Revised: 10 October 2022
Accepted: 12 October 2022
Published: 07 December 2022
Issue date: April 2023

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© Tsinghua University Press 2022

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 22102132), the Funds for Basic Scientific Research in Central Universities and the Youth Project of the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province, China (No. 2021JQ-087), Ningbo Natural Science Foundation (No. 2021J053), and the open research fund of Key Laboratory for Organic Electronics and Information Displays.

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