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Mesopore-dominated N, S co-doped carbon as advanced oxygen reduction reaction electrocatalysts for Zn-air battery

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Abstract

Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is a crucial step for Zn-air batteries (ZABs), which requires low-cost yet efficient catalysts to satisfy the practical application. Heteroatom-doped, especially N, S-doped carbon, has attracted intensive attention as promising ORR catalysts. However, the issues of devitalized micropore channels covered by reaction intermediates and unstable configuration of N, S heteroatoms obtained by post-doping treatment have largely hindered the development of carbon-based catalysts. Herein, mesopore-dominated N, S co-doped hierarchical carbon has been constructed by the hard-soft (SiO2–ZnCl2) template strategy based on waste biomass. The optimal catalyst (NSC-PT-0.1) exhibits a mesopore-dominated hierarchical porous structure with high SBET (2357.55 m2 g−1) and N, S content (~ 2.32 at.%), resulting in comparable ORR activity in acid (E1/2 = 0.69 V) and alkaline (E1/2 = 0.83 V) media to Pt/C. Moreover, different biomass precursors of Carrot, Whorled stonecrop, and Ginkgo leaf have been explored to verify the generality of hard-soft template strategy. When NSC-PT-0.1 is applied as the air electrode, the assembled ZAB exhibits high power density of 155.55 mW cm−2 and long-term cycling stability over 216 h. Therefore, this work provides a versatile hard-soft template strategy to synthesize efficient ORR catalysts for ZABs application through the resource utilization of biomass.

Graphical abstract

Mesopore-dominated N, S co-doped carbon is synthesized by one-step pyrolysis of waste biomass and SiO2–ZnCl2 hard-soft templates. The optimal catalyst exhibits excellent ORR performances in alkaline and acid media as well as promising Zn-air battery application.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51872076 and U1804255), the Program for Innovative Research Team of Henan Scientific Committee (CXTD2014033), the Project of Central Plains Science and Technology Innovation Leading Talents, Henan Province (Grant no. 194200510001), and the Scientific and Technological Research Project, Henan Province (Grant no. 212102210651).

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  1. Shouting Wang and Ye Chen made equal contributions to this work

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  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, 453007, Henan, People’s Republic of China

    Shouting Wang, Ye Chen, Dongliang Li & Xupo Liu

  2. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, 453007, Henan, People’s Republic of China

    Yaling Zhao & Gangya Wei

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Wang, S., Chen, Y., Zhao, Y. et al. Mesopore-dominated N, S co-doped carbon as advanced oxygen reduction reaction electrocatalysts for Zn-air battery. J Mater Sci 57, 19431–19446 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-022-07784-7

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