Activating bifunctional oxygen electrocatalytic activity of MoS2 via bimetallic doping for flexible zinc-air battery with self-supported N-doped carbon foam electrode

The development of an integrated air cathode is fundamental to flexible zinc-air batteries (ZABs) for wearable electronics. Nevertheless, its sluggish kinetics and multiple complex steps in electrochemical reaction make it necessary to persue highly active and durable electrocatalysts to meet practical application requirements. A simple one-pot hydrothermal strategy is proposed to prepare a cobalt and ruthenium dual-doped MoS 2 (Co,Ru/MoS 2 ) supported by nitrogen-doped carbon foam (NCF) catalyst for use as the air cathode in flexible ZABs. The resulting catalyst features abundant catalytic active sites and an oriented structure, demonstrating excellent OER and ORR catalytic activity. The Co,Ru/MoS 2 @NCF exhibits an excellent overpotential of 1.57 V at 10 mA cm -2 in OER, half wave potential of 0.75 V in ORR, along with outstanding long-term cycling stability both in OER and ORR under alkaline environments. The flexible ZABs based on Co,Ru/MoS 2 @NCF catalyst achieved a large open-circuit voltage (1.32 V) as well as peak power density (36 mW cm -2 ), outperforming Ru/MoS 2 @NCF and Co/MoS 2 @NCF in performance. Meanwhile, the flexible ZABs maintained stability even after over 1000 charge-discharge cycles (335 h). This achievement provides new insights for the development of flexible metal-air batteries.