Catalyst-Support Interaction in Polyaniline-Supported Ni3Fe Oxide to Boost Oxygen Evolution Activities for Rechargeable Zn-Air Batteries

Xiaohong Zou; Qian Lu; Mingcong Tang; Jie Wu; Kouer Zhang; Wenzhi Li; Yunxia Hu; Xiaomin Xu; Xiao Zhang; Zongping Shao; Liang An

doi:10.1007/s40820-024-01511-4

Catalyst-Support Interaction in Polyaniline-Supported Ni₃Fe Oxide to Boost Oxygen Evolution Activities for Rechargeable Zn-Air Batteries

Nanomicro Lett. 2024 Sep 21;17(1):6. doi: 10.1007/s40820-024-01511-4.

Authors

Xiaohong Zou¹, Qian Lu^{2

3}, Mingcong Tang¹, Jie Wu¹, Kouer Zhang¹, Wenzhi Li¹, Yunxia Hu¹, Xiaomin Xu⁴, Xiao Zhang^{5

6

7}, Zongping Shao⁸, Liang An^{9

10

11}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China.
² Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment Monitoring and Pollution Control, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, School of Environmental Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, People's Republic of China.
³ Department of Chemistry, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Ma Lin Building, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR, 999077, People's Republic of China.
⁴ WA School of Mines: Minerals, Energy and Chemical Engineering (WASM-MECE), Curtin University, Perth, WA, 6102, Australia.
⁵ Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China. [email protected].
⁶ Research Institute for Advanced Manufacturing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China. [email protected].
⁷ Research Institute for Smart Energy, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China. [email protected].
⁸ WA School of Mines: Minerals, Energy and Chemical Engineering (WASM-MECE), Curtin University, Perth, WA, 6102, Australia. [email protected].
⁹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China. [email protected].
¹⁰ Research Institute for Advanced Manufacturing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China. [email protected].
¹¹ Research Institute for Smart Energy, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China. [email protected].

Abstract

Catalyst-support interaction plays a crucial role in improving the catalytic activity of oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Here we modulate the catalyst-support interaction in polyaniline-supported Ni₃Fe oxide (Ni₃Fe oxide/PANI) with a robust hetero-interface, which significantly improves oxygen evolution activities with an overpotential of 270 mV at 10 mA cm^-2 and specific activity of 2.08 mA cm_ECSA^-2 at overpotential of 300 mV, 3.84-fold that of Ni₃Fe oxide. It is revealed that the catalyst-support interaction between Ni₃Fe oxide and PANI support enhances the Ni-O covalency via the interfacial Ni-N bond, thus promoting the charge and mass transfer on Ni₃Fe oxide. Considering the excellent activity and stability, rechargeable Zn-air batteries with optimum Ni₃Fe oxide/PANI are assembled, delivering a low charge voltage of 1.95 V to cycle for 400 h at 10 mA cm^-2. The regulation of the effect of catalyst-support interaction on catalytic activity provides new possibilities for the future design of highly efficient OER catalysts.

Keywords: Catalyst–support interaction; Heterointerface; Oxygen evolution reaction; Supported catalysts; Zn-air batteries.