In Situ Coupling of Highly Dispersed Ni/Fe Metal-NC Sites and N-Doped 3D Carbon Fibers Toward Free-Standing Bifunctional Cathode for Flexible Zinc-Air Battery

Abstract

Designing flexible free-standing air-electrode with efficient OER/ORR performance is of vital importance for the application of Zinc-air batteries in flexible electronics. Herein, a flexible free-standing electrode (Ni/Fe-NC/NCF/CC) is synthesized by in-situ coupling of binary Ni/Fe-NC nanocubes and N-doped carbon nanofibers (NCF) rooted on carbon cloth. The highly dispersed binary Ni/Fe-NC sites ensure excellent ORR activity and create efficient OER active sites relative to Ni-NC and Fe-NC. The in-situ coupling of Ni/Fe-NC and NCF constructs a 3D interconnected network structure that not only provides abundant and stabilized reactive sites but also guarantees fast electron transfer and gas transportation, thus achieving efficient and fast operation of ORR/OER. Therefore, Ni/Fe-NC/NCF/CC displays a much positive potential (0.952 V) at 4.0 mA cm^–2 for ORR and a low OER overpotential (310 mV) at 50 mA cm^–2. The Zinc-air battery with Ni/Fe-NC/NCF/CC air-electrode exhibits excellent battery performance with outstanding discharge/charge durability for 2150 cycles. The flexible Zn-air batteries with foldable mechanical properties display a high power density of 105.0 mW cm^–2. This work widened the way to prepare flexible bifunctional air-electrode by designing composition/structure and in-situ coupling.

Keywords

binary Ni/Fe-NC sites / in-situ coupling / synergistic catalytic effect / Zn-air battery

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2022 The Authors. Energy & Environmental Materials published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Zhengzhou University.