The Synergistic Effect Accelerates the Oxygen Reduction/Evolution Reaction in a Zn-Air Battery

Yidan Zhang, Youmin Guo, Tao Liu, Fuxu Feng, Chunchang Wang, Haibo Hu, Mingzai Wu, Meng Ni, Zongping Shao

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

29 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Perovskite oxides are promising electrocatalysts toward oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) due to their abundance and high intrinsic catalytic activity. Here we introduce Ag into Sm0.5Sr0.5CoO3−δ (SSC) to form a Ag-SSC catalyst by ultrasonication and apply it as the air electrode for a Zn-air battery. It finds that the introduction of Ag into SSC can transform the Ag-SSC into a good bifunctional electrocatalyst toward ORR as well as OER. For instance, a more active half-wave potential with a value of 0.76 V for ORR is obtained at 1,600 rpm, while the OER overpotential is 0.43 V at I = 10 mA cm−2. Further characterization demonstrates that the improved catalyst activity of the Ag-SSC can be assigned to the synergistic effect generated between the Ag and SSC phases. The Zn-air battery with the Ag-SSC as an electrode not only gives a same discharge-charge voltage gap (1.33 V) with that of commercial Pt/C (1.33 V) but also presents an equivalent current efficiency (45.7% for Ag-SSC and 45.3% for Pt/C) at 10 mA cm−2. Moreover, the stability for 110 cycles is better. This result indicates that the Ag-SSC catalyst shows promise for use as a bifunctional electrocatalyst toward OER and ORR.

Original languageEnglish
Article number524
JournalFrontiers in Chemistry
Volume7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 23 Jul 2019

Keywords

  • oxygen evolution reaction
  • oxygen reduction reaction
  • silver glue
  • Sr-doped Sm cobaltite perovskite
  • synergistic effect

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Chemistry

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The Synergistic Effect Accelerates the Oxygen Reduction/Evolution Reaction in a Zn-Air Battery'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this