A Wide‐Temperature Adaptive Aqueous Zinc‐Air Battery‐Based on Cu–Co Dual Metal–Nitrogen‐Carbon/Nanoparticle Electrocatalysts

Abstract

Zinc‐air batteries (ZABs) are promising electrochemical energy storage devices, but the inherent semi‐open configuration and catalytically dependent working principle make their performance vulnerable to temperature. Herein, a tunable multi‐site electrocatalyst is manufactured as the cathode for wide‐temperature adaptive aqueous ZABs, comprising Cu–Co dual metal–nitrogen–carbon‐coupled with metal nanoparticles (CuCo‐NC/NPs). The multi‐components synergistically optimize the electronic structure of active sites in CuCo‐NC/NPs, which endows them with low apparent activation energy (Ea) and high activity for oxygen reduction reaction. Moreover, the CuCo‐NC/NPs‐based aqueous ZABs demonstrate satisfactory stability over 540 h, and a high specific capacity of 806 mAh gzn−1 at 10 mA cm−2 at room temperature, outperforming that of Pt/C and many recent report catalysts based ZABs. Even at −30 and 60 °C, the assembled ZABs can deliver more than 88.1% and 95.5% of its room‐temperature specific capacity, as well as superior cycling stability, paving the way for practical applications of aqueous ZABs under extreme conditions.

Keywords

• electrocatalyses
• multiple active sites
• oxygen reduction reactions
• wide-temperatures
• zinc-air batteries