Oxygen Deficient LaMn0.75Co0.25O3-δ Nanofibers as an Efficient Electrocatalyst for Oxygen Evolution Reaction and Zinc-Air Batteries.

Abstract

The rational design of efficient and durable oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is important for energy conversion and storage devices. Here, we develop a two-step calcination method to prepare cobalt nanoparticles uniformly dispersed on perovskite oxide nanofibers and to tune oxygen vacancies in perovskite LaMn0.75Co0.25O3-δ nanofibers. The obtained product shows enhanced activity toward OER. In particular, the oxygen deficient LMCO-2 catalyst prepared by a two-step calcination shows excellent OER performance that is 27.5 times that of the LMO catalyst and is comparable to that of the commercial RuO2 catalyst. It also demonstates good stability because of its novel structure, abundant oxygen vacancies, and larger number of metal ions with a high oxidation state. As an air electrode for a flexible zinc-air battery, the cell with the LMCO-2 catalyst delivers a higher power density of 35 mW cm-2 and excellent cycling stability for 70 h. Moreover, the cell exhibits excellent flexibility under different bending conditions.