Superstructured Carbon with Enhanced Kinetics for Zinc-Air Battery and Self-Powered Overall Water Splitting

Abstract

The present study proposes a novel engineering concept for the customization of functionality and construction of superstructure to fabricate 2D monolayered N-doped carbon superstructure electrocatalysts decorated with Co single atoms or Co2P nanoparticles derived from 2D bimetallic ZnCo-ZIF superstructure precursors. The hierarchically porous carbon superstructure maximizes the exposure of accessible active sites, enhances electron/mass transport efficiency, and accelerates reaction kinetics simultaneously. Consequently, the Co single atoms embedded N-doped carbon superstructure (Co-NCS) exhibits remarkable catalytic activity toward oxygen reduction reaction, achieving a half-wave potential of 0.886 V versus RHE. Additionally, the Co2P nanoparticles embedded N-doped carbon superstructure (Co2P-NCS) demonstrates high activity for both oxygen evolution reaction and hydrogen evolution reaction, delivering low overpotentials of 292 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and 193 mV at 10 mA cm−2 respectively. Impressively, when employed in an assembled rechargeable Zn-air battery, the as-prepared 2D carbon superstructure electrocatalysts exhibit exceptional performance with a peak power density of 219 mW cm−2 and a minimal charge/discharge voltage gap of only 1.16 V at 100 mA cm−2. Moreover, the cell voltage required to drive an overall water-splitting electrolyzer at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 is merely 1.69 V using these catalysts as electrodes.