Decorated and reconstructed perovskite-oxide electrodes for oxygen electrocatalysis and Zn-air batteries.

Although decorated nanoparticles offer a great potential to generate extra active sites, their preparation usually requires time- and energy-consuming approaches. We report the remarkable activity and durability augmentation for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) via effective and facile on-site electrochemical manipulation, using LaNiO as a model catalyst. When compared to the pristine LaNiO, the electrochemically manipulated LaNiO cycled in Fe-containing 0.1 M KOH (i.e., E-LNO+Fe) exhibits an almost three-fold improvement in current density at 1.65 V. It is experimentally and theoretically shown that the electrochemical manipulation leads to the creation of defective LaNiO and NiO on the surfaces, which accelerate phase transformation to (oxy)hydroxides and hence the OER. Furthermore, a Zn-air battery assembled with E-LNO+Fe has demonstrated superior activity by presenting 171 mW cm. Thus, our work demonstrates that substantial performance increases may be achieved by decorating and reconstructing perovskite-oxide electrodes via on-site electrochemical modification.