Co/Ni dual-metal embedded in heteroatom doped porous carbon core-shell bifunctional electrocatalyst for rechargeable Zn-air batteries

Rational construction of highly efficient and cheap bifunctional electrocatalysts to boost both oxygen evolution reaction(OER)and oxygen reduction reaction(ORR)is extremely essential for the wide application of rechargeable metal-air battery.In this work,we design a core-shell structural catalyst of CoNi dual-metal embedded in nitrogen doped porous carbon(NPC,CoNi@NPC),which is developed via the pyrolysis of CoNiMOFs,assisting by mesoporous SiO_(2) to effectively inhibit the aggregation of metal sites.Consequently,the asprepared CoNi@NPC manifests good ORR activity with half-wave potential up to 0.77 V.Specifically,the CoNi@NPC gives a very low OER over-potential of merely 101 mV in 6 M KOH along with high stability,outperforming the commercial Pt/C-RuO_(2).Moreover,the home-made zinc air battery with CoNi@NPC air cathode demonstrates excellent stability over long-term charging–discharging test,and delivers the maximum power density of 224 mW cm^(-2).The enhanced high performance of CoNi@NPC bifunctional catalyst for both ORR and OER can be ascribed to its unique core-shell structure and strong synergistic effect between the dual-bimetal active sites and the heteroatom doped carbon.This work opens a new avenue for the rational design of nonprecious metal bifunctional catalysts for rechargeable metal-air battery.