The development of cost-effective and highly active electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is essential for advancing clean energy and energy storage systems. Herein, we prepared a novel Zn-promoted FeCo alloy anchored on an N-doped carbon aerogel (Zn-FeCo@NCA) derived from cellulose aerogel as an efficient and stable electrocatalyst using high-temperature carbothermal reduction. This process provides a solution to the problem of limiting the industrialization of metal aerogels by employing traditional chemical reductants and enhances cost-effectiveness due to the use of non-precious metals. The Zn-FeCo@NCA aerogel displays excellent OER activity with a low overpotential of 270 mV (10 mA cm−2) and a high mass activity of 0.429 A mg−1, surpassing most commercial precious metal catalysts. Electrochemical in situ Raman spectroscopy indicates that Zn-FeCo@NCA undergoes self-reconfiguration during the OER to form CoOOH as a truly catalytically active species. Moreover, density functional theory (DFT) calculations further demonstrate that this modulated electronic structure favors the reduction of the adsorption energy of the intermediate O*, thereby accelerating the electron transfer kinetics and enhancing the OER activity. When integrated into an anion-exchange membrane water electrolyzer (AEMWE), the Zn-FeCo@NCA anode achieves a current density of 1000 mA cm−2 at 2.18 V per cell, outperforming commercial RuO2. In conclusion, benefiting from the optimized electronic interactions between Zn-promoted FeCo alloys and N-doped carbon aerogels, as well as the “pearl-like” hierarchical structure, large specific surface area, and high electrical conductivity, Zn-FeCo@NCA is expected to be an ideal candidate for the anode of AEMWEs.
Bo Wang,Qiao Liu,Ao Yuan,Qing Shi,Lan Jiang,Weiyou Yang,Tao Yang,Xinmei Hou
One key step for advancing the widespread practical application of rechargeable metal-air batteries and water electrolysis fundamentally relies on the development of cost-effective multifunctional electrocatalysts toward oxygen and hydrogen-involving reactions. The present work initiates a tofu-derived one-pot strategy for green, facile, and mass production of highly active and stable catalyst toward oxygen reduction/evolution and hydrogen evolution reactions, through the preparation of Fe/Co cross-linked tofu gel and the subsequent pyrolysis. Despite the free use of additional N/P precursors or pore-forming agents, the as-prepared materials comprise highly dispersive FeCo-rich phosphides nanoparticles and porous N,P co-doped carbon network inherited from the tofu skeleton. The resultant catalysts exhibit remarkably enhanced trifunctional activities as compared to the Fe 2 P and Co 2 P counterparts, along with better long-term stabilities than the benchmark RuO 2 and Pt/C catalysts. Accordingly, the as-assembled Zn-air battery delivers a large power density (174 mW cm −2 ) with excellent cycle stability (the gap of charge/discharge voltage@10 mA cm −2 increases by 0.01 V after 720 h of operation, vs . 0.16 V of Pt/C-RuO 2 based battery after 378 h). Furthermore, the as-constructed alkaline electrolyzer just requires a small voltage of 1.55 V@10 mA cm −2 , which outperforms nearly all of those of biomass-derived electrocatalysts ever reported, and that of noble metal catalysts-based electrolyzers (1.72 V@10 mA cm −2 for Pt/C-RuO 2 ), underscoring their bright future toward commercial applications in green energy conversion devices.
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