TY - JOUR
T1 - Mussel-inspired one-pot synthesis of transition metal and nitrogen co-doped carbon (M/N-C) as efficient oxygen catalysts for Zn-air batteries
AU - Li, Bing
AU - Chen, Ye
AU - Ge, Xiaoming
AU - Chai, Jianwei
AU - Zhang, Xiao
AU - Hor, T. S.Andy
AU - Du, Guojun
AU - Liu, Zhaolin
AU - Zhang, Hua
AU - Zong, Yun
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was conducted under the project of IMRE/12-2P0504, which is part of the Advanced Energy Storage Research Programme supported by the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) of A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research), Singapore. H. Z. acknowledges the support from MOE under AcRF Tier 2 (ARC 26/13, No. MOE2013-T2-1-034; ARC 19/15, No. MOE2014-T2-2-093) and AcRF Tier 1 (RGT18/13, RG5/13), and NTU under Start-Up Grant (M4081296.070.500000) in Singapore. This research is also conducted by NTU-HUJ-BGU Nanomaterials for Energy and Water Management Programme under the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE), that is supported by the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister''s Office, Singapore.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Royal Society of Chemistry 2016.
PY - 2016/3/7
Y1 - 2016/3/7
N2 - Transition metal and nitrogen co-doping into carbon is an effective approach to promote the catalytic activities towards the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and/or oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in the resultant electrocatalysts, M/N-C. The preparation of such catalysts, however, is often complicated and in low yield. Herein we report a robust approach for easy synthesis of M/N-C hybrids in high yield, which includes a mussel-inspired polymerization reaction at room temperature and a subsequent carbonization process. With the introduction of selected transition metal salts into an aqueous solution of dopamine (DA), the obtained mixture self-polymerizes to form metal-containing polydopamine (M-PDA) composites, e.g. Co-PDA, Ni-PDA and Fe-PDA. Upon carbonization at elevated temperatures, these metal-containing composites were converted into M/N-C, i.e. Co-PDA-C, Ni-PDA-C and Fe-PDA-C, respectively, whose morphologies, chemical compositions, and electrochemical performances were fully studied. Enhanced ORR activities were found in all the obtained hybrids, with Co-PDA-C standing out as the most promising catalyst with excellent stability and catalytic activities towards both ORR and OER. This was further proven in Zn-air batteries (ZnABs) in terms of discharge voltage stability and cycling performance. At a discharge-charge current density of 2 mA cm-2 and 1 h per cycle, the Co-PDA-C based ZnABs were able to steadily cycle up to 500 cycles with only a small increase in the discharge-charge voltage gap which notably outperformed Pt/C; at a discharge current density of 5 mA cm-2, the battery continuously discharged for more than 540 h with the discharge voltage above 1 V and a voltage drop rate of merely 0.37 mV h-1. With the simplicity and scalability of the synthetic approach and remarkable battery performances, the Co-PDA-C hybrid catalyst is anticipated to play an important role in practical ZnABs.
AB - Transition metal and nitrogen co-doping into carbon is an effective approach to promote the catalytic activities towards the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and/or oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in the resultant electrocatalysts, M/N-C. The preparation of such catalysts, however, is often complicated and in low yield. Herein we report a robust approach for easy synthesis of M/N-C hybrids in high yield, which includes a mussel-inspired polymerization reaction at room temperature and a subsequent carbonization process. With the introduction of selected transition metal salts into an aqueous solution of dopamine (DA), the obtained mixture self-polymerizes to form metal-containing polydopamine (M-PDA) composites, e.g. Co-PDA, Ni-PDA and Fe-PDA. Upon carbonization at elevated temperatures, these metal-containing composites were converted into M/N-C, i.e. Co-PDA-C, Ni-PDA-C and Fe-PDA-C, respectively, whose morphologies, chemical compositions, and electrochemical performances were fully studied. Enhanced ORR activities were found in all the obtained hybrids, with Co-PDA-C standing out as the most promising catalyst with excellent stability and catalytic activities towards both ORR and OER. This was further proven in Zn-air batteries (ZnABs) in terms of discharge voltage stability and cycling performance. At a discharge-charge current density of 2 mA cm-2 and 1 h per cycle, the Co-PDA-C based ZnABs were able to steadily cycle up to 500 cycles with only a small increase in the discharge-charge voltage gap which notably outperformed Pt/C; at a discharge current density of 5 mA cm-2, the battery continuously discharged for more than 540 h with the discharge voltage above 1 V and a voltage drop rate of merely 0.37 mV h-1. With the simplicity and scalability of the synthetic approach and remarkable battery performances, the Co-PDA-C hybrid catalyst is anticipated to play an important role in practical ZnABs.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84959378520&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1039/c5nr06538k
DO - 10.1039/c5nr06538k
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:84959378520
SN - 2040-3364
VL - 8
SP - 5067
EP - 5075
JO - Nanoscale
JF - Nanoscale
IS - 9
ER -