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Zinc-air batteries (ZABs) with sustainable electrocatalysts have seen a lot of efforts to address oxygen reaction challenges to increase their lifespan and energy efficiency. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and their derived materials are potential bifunctional electrocatalysts for addressing the oxygen reactions kinetics. However, under operational circumstances, MOFs and derived materials typically exhibit subpar electrochemical and conductivity. In this study, embedding MOF derived FeNi-N-C porous material in a few layer MXene nanosheets was effective strategy, enabling adequate conductivity, stability, and exposure number of active sites with better electrocatalytic activity towards oxygen reduction and oxidation reactions (ORR and OER). The resulting FeNi-NC@Ti 3 C 2 hybrid exhibits notable bifunctional activities with a half-wave potential of 0.85 V and a low overpotential of 1.56 V, remarkable long-term cycle durability, as well as strong alcohol tolerance in an alkaline electrolyte. In addition, there is conductive MXene scaffold to achieve the highest ORR and OER activities with an ΔE value of 0.70 V. Furthermore, the FeNi-NC@Ti 3 C 2 air-cathode-based assembled ZAB exhibits remarkable long-term cycling stability at 10 mA cm -2 , a peak power density of 201 mW cm -2 , and a high open circuit voltage (OCV) of 1.5 V. Ti 3 C 2 MXene nanosheets provide a synergistic effect between two different materials in addition to protecting the surfaces of composite. This work provides a useful technique for enhancing ZAB's oxygen redox reactions, which could be used to aid in the development of efficient MOF@MXene based catalysts for electrochemical energy reactions.
Gopalakrishnan et al. (Fri,) studied this question.