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The development of robust and efficient trifunctional catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), and hydrogen reaction (HER) is central to regenerative metal-air batteries and overall water splitting. It is still a big challenge to achieve an efficient integration of three functions in one freestanding electrode. Herein, a facile and upscalable strategy is demonstrated, to construct cobalt nanoparticle-encapsulated 3D conductive films (Co/CNFs), which were induced by in situ solid diffusion from bulk cobalt metal. Under high-temperature, volatile cobalt species from bulk cobalt foil are trapped by the contacted nitrogen-rich carbons, followed by catalytic growth of interconnected carbon tubes, forming the 3D structured film. This resulting film can be directly preformed as self-supporting and binder-free electrode, which simultaneously facilitates the ORR, OER, and HER with excellent activities and superior stability. Furthermore, such "all-in-one" film also exhibits remarkable performance for Zn-air batteries and overall water splitting, demonstrating its feasibility for practical applications.
Yang et al. (Tue,) studied this question.