Controlled Synthesis of Co@N-Doped Carbon by Pyrolysis of ZIF with 2‑Aminobenzimidazole Ligand for Enhancing Oxygen Reduction Reaction and the Application in Zn–Air Battery

• Published in: ACS applied materials & interfaces 2020-03, Vol.12 (10), p.11693-11701
• Main Authors: Zhang, Minghui, Zhang, Erhuan, Hu, Chunyan, Zhao, Yong, Zhang, Han-ming, Zhang, Yijie, Ji, Muwei, Yu, Jiali, Cong, Guangtao, Liu, Huichao, Zhang, Jiatao, Zhu, Caizhen, Xu, Jian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1944-8244; 1944-8252
• DOI: 10.1021/acsami.9b22476

The Co/N-doped carbon material, as an important electrocatalytic material, has been attracted intense interest in ORR and Zn–air battery. Here, we report an efficient Co@N-doped carbon catalyst (Co@N-C-1) obtained by pyrolysis of ZIF precursor with 2-aminobenzimidazole. The introduction of 2-aminobenzimidazole results in the formation of hierarchical meso/microporous structure of the as-prepared Co@N-C-1, effectively avoiding the aggregation of Co nanoparticles during pyrolysis and the higher N content, which contributes to enhance the ORR electrocatalytic activities. The obtained Co@N-C-1 exhibits remarkable ORR performance with a half-wave potential of 0.938 V vs RHE in alkaline media. As the air catalyst of zinc–air batteries, Co@N-C-1 displays 1.439 V of open-circuit voltage and 1413.3 Wh·kg–1 of energy density.