An elaborate electron spin modulator of schottky catalyst for stable alkaline Zn-air battery application

Exploitation of high-efficient and cost-effective electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is extremely urgent due to the sluggish kinetics nature of OER and its wide use in the field of energy storage and conversion. Herein, we report a yolk-shell structured schottky catalyst composed of CoFe alloy core and Co-Fe sulfides shell (designated as CoFe/Co-Fe-S) as efficient OER catalyst via a simple two-step preparation method. The as-fabricated CoFe/Co-Fe-S schottky catalyst not only shows remarkable OER activity with a low overpotential of 263 mV at 10 mA cm −2 and a low Tafel slope of 43 mV dec −1 , but also presents robust long-term stability behaviors, showing its potential for applications in aqueous alkaline Zn-air batteries and solid-state devices. Theoretical analysis unveils that the boosted OER activity originates from the unique yolk-shell structured schottky catalyst, in which the three-dimensional ion channels, interfacial electron redistribution, dual-metal active sites allow the accelerated electron transfer, the favorable ion transportation and penetration and the optimized electron spin configuration of Co 2+ d z 2 orbit, finally, promoting the optimized deprotonation of OOH∗ to form O-O bond.