Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 11, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
NATURE RESEARCH
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15853-1
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Funding
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
- University of Waterloo
- Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology
- Xijiang RD Team
- NSERC
- National Research Council Canada
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research
- Province of Saskatchewan
- Western Economic Diversification Canada
- University of Saskatchewan
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Recent fruitful studies on rechargeable zinc-air battery have led to emergence of various bifunctional oxygen electrocatalysts, especially metal-based materials. However, their electrocatalytic configuration and evolution pathway during battery operation are rarely spotlighted. Herein, to depict the underlying behaviors, a concept named dynamic electrocatalyst is proposed. By selecting a bimetal nitride as representation, a current-driven shell-bulk configuration is visualized via time-resolved X-ray and electron spectroscopy analyses. A dynamic picture sketching the generation and maturation of nanoscale oxyhydroxide shell is presented, and periodic valence swings of performance-dominant element are observed. Upon maturation, zinc-air battery experiences a near two-fold enlargement in power density to 234mWcm(-2), a gradual narrowing of voltage gap to 0.85V at 30mAcm(-2), followed by stable cycling for hundreds of hours. The revealed configuration can serve as the basis to construct future blueprints for metal-based electrocatalysts, and push zinc-air battery toward practical application. Interest in rechargeable Zn-air batteries has been renewed in recent years, however, their oxygen electrocatalysts remain not fully understood. Here the authors reveal the presence of a current-driven oxyhydroxide shell in a so-called dynamic eletrocatalyst that enables optimized battery performance.
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