One-dimensional manganese-cobalt oxide nanofibres as bi-functional cathode catalysts for rechargeable metal-air batteries

Rechargeable metal-air batteries are considered a promising energy storage solution owing to their high theoretical energy density. The major obstacles to realising this technology include the slow kinetics of oxygen reduction and evolution on the cathode (air electrode) upon battery discharging and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2015-01, Vol.5 (1), p.7665-7665, Article 7665
Main Authors: Jung, Kyu-Nam, Hwang, Soo Min, Park, Min-Sik, Kim, Ki Jae, Kim, Jae-Geun, Dou, Shi Xue, Kim, Jung Ho, Lee, Jong-Won
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/301/299/891
639/638/161/886
Carbon cycle
Catalysts
Cobalt
conference-proceeding
Corrosion
Energy storage
Humanities and Social Sciences
Lithium
Manganese
multidisciplinary
Oxides
Oxygen
Science
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Summary:Rechargeable metal-air batteries are considered a promising energy storage solution owing to their high theoretical energy density. The major obstacles to realising this technology include the slow kinetics of oxygen reduction and evolution on the cathode (air electrode) upon battery discharging and charging, respectively. Here, we report non-precious metal oxide catalysts based on spinel-type manganese-cobalt oxide nanofibres fabricated by an electrospinning technique. The spinel oxide nanofibres exhibit high catalytic activity towards both oxygen reduction and evolution in an alkaline electrolyte. When incorporated as cathode catalysts in Zn-air batteries, the fibrous spinel oxides considerably reduce the discharge-charge voltage gaps (improve the round-trip efficiency) in comparison to the catalyst-free cathode. Moreover, the nanofibre catalysts remain stable over the course of repeated discharge-charge cycling; however, carbon corrosion in the catalyst/carbon composite cathode degrades the cycling performance of the batteries.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep07665