2 D Hybrid of Ni-LDH Chips on Carbon Nanosheets as Cathode of Zinc-Air Battery for Electrocatalytic Conversion of O2 into H2O2

It remains great challenge to develop precious-metal-free electrocatalysts to implement high-activity electrochemical conversion of O-2 into value-added hydroperoxide species (HO2-), which are vulnerable when exposed to various transition-metal-based catalysts. A strategy based on steric hindrance and layered nickel-based layered double hydroxide (Ni-LDH) induction has been developed for one-pot inlaying high-density ultrathin 2 D Ni-LDH chips on in situ-grown carbon nanosheets (Ni-LDH C/CNSs). The resulting material exhibits high electrocatalytic selectivity with a faradaic efficiency up to 95 % for oxygen reduction into peroxide and attains a fairly high mass activity of approximately 22.2 A g(-1), outperforming most metal-based catalysts reported previously. Systematic studies demonstrate that the greatly increased defect concentration at Ni edge sites of Ni-LDH chips results in more active sites, which contributes a favorable thermodynamically neutral adsorption of OOH* and adsorbed H2O2 molecules relatively weakly. Additionally, the modified CNSs effectively suppress H2O2 decomposition and avoid O-O bond cleavage to produce H2O by steric effects. The synergistic effect of CNSs and Ni-LDH chips therefore leads to high activity and high selectivity in a two-electron pathway. A proof-of-concept zinc-air fuel cell is proposed and set up to demonstrate the feasibility of green synthesis of peroxide, generating an impressive H2O2 production rate of 5239.67 mmol h(-1) g(cat.)(-1).