Coupling interfaces between hollow carbon dodecahedrons and layered double hydroxides for high-performance rechargeable zinc−air batteries

Abstract

The rational design of high-performance bifunctional electrocatalysts toward both oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is critical for the development of high-efficiency zinc−air batteries (ZABs). Herein, we report a facile method to synthesize a bifunctional electrocatalyst (FeNC/LDHs), which consists of Fe-doped hollow carbon dodecahedron (FeNC) coupling with NiFe-layered double hydroxides (LDHs). The coupling integration of FeNC dodecahedra and LDH nanosheets enriches the electrochemically active surface area and modulates the electron redistribution via oxygen bridges between FeNC and LDHs, thus effectively improving electrocatalytic activity and exhibiting a small potential difference of ΔE = 0.68 V during the ORR and OER process. The optimized FeNC/LDH-21 as a cathode in zinc-air batteries demonstrates a specific capacity of 810 mAh·g⁻¹ at 10 mA·cm⁻² and a power density of 85 mW·cm⁻², and stable operation over 160 h. Moreover, the as-assembled solid-state flexible ZAB reaches a power density of 32.4 mW·cm⁻² and maintains a stable charge-discharge process at different bending or hammering states. This work opens an avenue for the facile and large-scale synthesis of bifunctional electrocatalysts and would propel the practical application of ZABs.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

metal−organic framework / bifunctional electrocatalyst / rechargeable zinc−air battery

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Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Jing Zhang: Methodology, Data curation, Investigation, Writing – original draft. Luo Xu: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data curation, Investigation. Yan Lin: Formal analysis, Validation. Baojian Xie: Formal analysis, Validation. Chunjie Li: Methodology. Tao Hu: Investigation, Formal analysis, Validation. Ulla Lassi: Supervision, Writing – review & editing. Ruguang Ma: Supervision, Writing – review & editing, Funding acquisition. Chang Ming Li: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing, Funding acquisition.

Data availability

Data will be made available on request.

Electronic supplementary materials

The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.15302/frontphys.2025.014210.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52172058).

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