April 16, 2021
Journal Article

Porous FeCo Glassy Alloy as Bifunctional Support for High-Performance Zn-Air Battery

Abstract

Zn-air battery (ZAB) is attracting increasing attention due to its high safety and performance. However, the practical application of ZAB relies heavily on developing durable support materials to replace conventional carbon supports which have unrecoverable corrosion issues, severely jeopardizing ZAB performance. Herein, a novel porous FeCo glassy alloy was developed as bifunctional catalytic support for ZAB. The conducting skeleton of the porous glassy alloy was used to stabilize oxygen reduction cocatalysts, and more importantly, the FeCo served as the primary phase for oxygen evolution. To prove the concept of catalytic glassy alloy support, ultra-small Pd nanoparticles were anchored, as oxygen reduction active sites, on the porous FeCo (noted as Pd/FeCo) for ZAB. The Pd/FeCo exhibited a significantly improved electrocatalytic activity for oxygen reduction (a half-wave potential of 0.85 V) and oxygen evolution (a potential of 1.55 V to reach 10 mA cm-2) in the alkaline media. When used in the ZAB, the Pd/FeCo delivered an output power density of 117 mW cm-2 and outstanding cycling stability for over 200 h (400 cycles), surpassing the conventional carbon-supported Pt/C+IrO2 catalysts. Such an integrated design of combining highly active components with porous architecture provides a new strategy to develop novel nanostructured electrocatalysts.

Published: April 16, 2021

Citation

Pan F., Z. Li, Z. Yang, Q. Ma, M. Wang, H. Wang, and M.J. Olszta, et al. 2021. "Porous FeCo Glassy Alloy as Bifunctional Support for High-Performance Zn-Air Battery." Advanced Energy Materials 11, no. 3:2002204. PNNL-SA-157857. doi:10.1002/aenm.202002204