Journal
JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY A
Volume 8, Issue 15, Pages 7297-7308Publisher
ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY
DOI: 10.1039/c9ta13651g
Keywords
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Funding
- Singapore MOE Tier 2 [MOE2017-T2-2-069]
- MOE Tier 2 [MOE2018-T2-1-010]
- MOE AcRF Tier 1 [RG113/15, 2016-T1-002-065]
- Singapore EMA project [EIRP 12/NRF2015EWT-EIRP002-008]
- NRF of Singapore [NRF2016NRF-NRFI001-22]
- Australian Research Council [FT160100107, DP180102210]
- University of Sydney
- 111 Project from Zhengzhou University [D18023]
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Developing efficient bifunctional oxygen electrocatalysts is an essential step in the realization of flexible metal-air batteries to power emerging flexible electronics. Herein, we use a dual-functional metal template to achieve the on-demand control of dispersed active M-N-C sites, porous structures, and surface wettability in a carbon nanofiber catalyst. The resulting engineered carbon nanofibers possess a high surface area (612.2 m(2) g(-1)), greatly improved accessibility to active catalytic sites, excellent surface hydrophilicity, and enhanced Fe(Co)-N-x/C interactions, demonstrating excellent bifunctional catalytic activities for both oxygen reduction and evolution reactions with long-term stability. When employed in air electrodes for aqueous rechargeable Zn-air batteries (ZABs), the ZABs show a high specific capacity (740 mA h g(Zn)(-1)), excellent rate capabilities, and, in particular, exceptional cycling stability over 2000 cycles. Furthermore, flexible ZABs fabricated using air electrodes containing this catalyst and a hydrogel electrolyte demonstrate outstanding performance, with a high open circuit potential (1.42 V), large peak power density (188.6 mW cm(-2)), high specific capacity (647 mA h g(Zn)(-1)), excellent round-trip efficiency of >64% over 500 cycles, and performance retention under various mechanical deformation processes. This unique and tunable carbon nanofiber engineering approach can create noble-metal-free high-performance bifunctional oxygen catalysts, outperforming Pt/C-IrO2 and bringing us one step closer to realizing a reliable energy storage solution for future flexible electronics.
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