Competitive Coordination-Oriented Monodispersed Cobalt Sites on a N-Rich Porous Carbon Microsphere Catalyst for High-Performance Zn−Air Batteries

Metal/nitrogen-doped carbon single-atom catalysts (M−N−C SACs) show excellent catalytic performance with a maximum atom utilization and customizable tunable electronic structure. However, precisely modulating the M−N<sub>x</sub> coordination in M−N−C SACs remains a grand challenge. Here,...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mengxia Shen, Hao Yang, Qingqing Liu, Qianyu Wang, Jun Liu, Jiale Qi, Xinyu Xu, Jiahua Zhu, Lilong Zhang, Yonghao Ni
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2023-04-01
Series:Nanomaterials
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2079-4991/13/8/1330
Description
Summary:Metal/nitrogen-doped carbon single-atom catalysts (M−N−C SACs) show excellent catalytic performance with a maximum atom utilization and customizable tunable electronic structure. However, precisely modulating the M−N<sub>x</sub> coordination in M−N−C SACs remains a grand challenge. Here, we used a N-rich nucleobase coordination self-assembly strategy to precisely regulate the dispersion of metal atoms by controlling the metal ratio. Meanwhile, the elimination of Zn during pyrolysis produced porous carbon microspheres with a specific surface area of up to 1151 m<sup>2</sup> g<sup>−1</sup>, allowing maximum exposure of Co−N<sub>4</sub> sites and facilitating charge transport in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) process. Thereby, the monodispersed cobalt sites (Co−N<sub>4</sub>) in N-rich (18.49 at%) porous carbon microspheres (CoSA/N−PCMS) displayed excellent ORR activity under alkaline conditions. Simultaneously, the Zn−air battery (ZAB) assembled with CoSA/N−PCMS outperformed Pt/C+RuO<sub>2</sub>-based ZABs in terms of power density and capacity, proving that they have good prospects for practical application.
ISSN:2079-4991