Interfacial Defect Engineering for Improved Portable Zinc-Air Batteries with a Broad Working Temperature

Li An; Bolong Huang; Yu Zhang; Rui Wang; Nan Zhang; Tengyuan Dai; Pinxian Xi; Chun-Hua Yan

doi:10.1002/anie.201903879

Interfacial Defect Engineering for Improved Portable Zinc-Air Batteries with a Broad Working Temperature

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2019 Jul 8;58(28):9459-9463. doi: 10.1002/anie.201903879. Epub 2019 Jun 5.

Authors

Li An¹, Bolong Huang², Yu Zhang¹, Rui Wang¹, Nan Zhang¹, Tengyuan Dai¹, Pinxian Xi¹, Chun-Hua Yan^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Applied Organic Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Nonferrous Metal Chemistry and Resources Utilization of Gansu Province, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
² Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Hum, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China.
³ Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications, PKU-HKU Joint Laboratory in Rare Earth Materials and Bioinorganic Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.

PMID: 30998291
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201903879

Abstract

Atomic-thick interfacial dominated bifunctional catalyst NiO/CoO transition interfacial nanowires (TINWs) with abundant defect sites display high electroactivity and durability in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Density functional theory (DFT) calculations show that the excellent OER/ORR performance arises from the electron-rich interfacial region coupled with defect sites, thus enabling a fast-redox rate with lower activation barrier for fast electron transfer. When assembled as an air-electrode, NiO/CoO TINWs delivered the high specific capacity of 842.58 mAh g_Zn ^-1 , the large energy density of 996.44 Wh kg_Zn ^-1 with long-time stability of more than 33 h (25 °C), and superior performance at low (-10 °C) and high temperature (80 °C).

Keywords: cathode materials; defect engineering; interfaces; oxygen evolution reaction; zinc-air batteries.

Grants and funding

21571089/NSFC