Efficient Bifunctional Oxygen Electrocatalysts for Rechargeable Zinc–Air Battery: Fe3O4/N−C Nanoflowers Derived from Aromatic Polyamide

Abstract

AbstractThe development of low‐cost, high‐activity bifunctional oxygen electrocatalysts for rechargeable zinc–air batteries is highly desired. Herein, N‐doped carbon nanoflower embedded Fe3O4nanoparticles were prepared using a simple and scalable method. The obtained electrocatalyst exhibits excellent activity and stability toward both oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER), as well as a small potential gap of 0.72 V between the half‐wave potential of ORR and the onset potential of OER potential, which is superior to the most previously reported bifunctional ORR/OER catalysts. The corresponding zinc–air battery exhibits good charged/discharge cycle performance as well as excellent discharge property, with a power density of 136.8 mW cm−2at 200 mA cm−2outperforming commercial Pt/C (96.5mW cm−2). Experiment results and density functional theory demonstrate that the high catalysis activity is mainly caused by the surface oxygen vacancy of Fe3O4nanoparticles. This study sheds new light on the ORR/OER bifunctional electrocatalyst design.