Highly Crumpled Hybrids of Nitrogen/Sulfur Dual-Doped Graphene and Co9S8 Nanoplates as Efficient Bifunctional Oxygen Electrocatalysts

A bifunctional electrocatalyst for both oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is highly attractive for the manufacture of clean energy conversion devices. In this work, highly crumpled hybrid of nitrogen and sulfur dual-doped graphene and quasi-hexagonal Co9S8 nanoplates (Co9S8/NSG(g-C3N4)) is fabricated via a facile ionic assembly approach. The unique structure of Co9S8/NSG(g-C3N4) renders it high specific surface area (288.3 m(2) g(-1)) and large pore volume (1.32 cm(3) g(-1)). As the electrocatalyst for ORR, Co9S8/NSG(g-C3N4) demonstrates excellent performance with the onset potential of -0.02 V vs Ag/AgCl and the limited current density of 6.05 mA cm(-2) at -0.9 V vs Ag/AgCl. Co9S8/NSG(g-C3N4) also presents outstanding catalytic activity toward OER by delivering a limited current density of 48 mA cm(-2) at 1 V vs Ag/AgCl. The bifunctional catalytic behaviors of Co9S8/NSG(g-C3N4) enable the assembly of a rechargeable Znair battery with it as the cathode catalyst, which exhibits stable discharge/charge voltage plateaus upon long time cycling over 50 h.