Jung Kyu-Nam, Hwang Soo Min, Park Min-Sik, Kim Ki Jae, Kim Jae-Geun, Dou Shi Xue, Kim Jung Ho, Lee Jong-Won
New and Renewable Energy Research Division, Korea Institute of Energy Research, 152 Gajeong-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-343, Republic of Korea.
Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials, Australian Institute for Innovative Materials, University of Wollongong, Innovation Campus, North Wollongong, New South Wales 2500, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2015 Jan 7;5:7665. doi: 10.1038/srep07665.
Rechargeable metal-air batteries are considered a promising energy storage solution owing to their high theoretical energy density. The major obstacles to realising this technology include the slow kinetics of oxygen reduction and evolution on the cathode (air electrode) upon battery discharging and charging, respectively. Here, we report non-precious metal oxide catalysts based on spinel-type manganese-cobalt oxide nanofibres fabricated by an electrospinning technique. The spinel oxide nanofibres exhibit high catalytic activity towards both oxygen reduction and evolution in an alkaline electrolyte. When incorporated as cathode catalysts in Zn-air batteries, the fibrous spinel oxides considerably reduce the discharge-charge voltage gaps (improve the round-trip efficiency) in comparison to the catalyst-free cathode. Moreover, the nanofibre catalysts remain stable over the course of repeated discharge-charge cycling; however, carbon corrosion in the catalyst/carbon composite cathode degrades the cycling performance of the batteries.
由于具有较高的理论能量密度，可充电金属空气电池被认为是一种很有前景的储能解决方案。实现这项技术的主要障碍分别包括电池放电和充电时阴极（空气电极）上氧还原和析氧的缓慢动力学。在此，我们报道了基于通过静电纺丝技术制备的尖晶石型锰钴氧化物纳米纤维的非贵金属氧化物催化剂。尖晶石氧化物纳米纤维在碱性电解质中对氧还原和析氧均表现出高催化活性。当作为阴极催化剂掺入锌空气电池中时，与无催化剂阴极相比，纤维状尖晶石氧化物显著降低了充放电电压间隙（提高了往返效率）。此外，纳米纤维催化剂在重复充放电循环过程中保持稳定；然而，催化剂/碳复合阴极中的碳腐蚀会降低电池的循环性能。
