Pt 8 V–V 2 O 3 Interfacial Electronic Bridge: Balancing Catalytic Activity-Stability-Multifunctionality for Durable AEM Water Electrolysis and Zn–Air Batteries

The large-scale applications of anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWEs) and zinc–air batteries (ZABs) are observably limited by the lack of highly active, multifunctional, and industrially applicable electrocatalysts. In this work, we report a solvent-free rapid pyrolysis strategy that successfully prepares a composite material of Pt8V–V2O3 heterostructure supported on nitrogen-doped porous carbon (Pt8V–V2O3@NPC). In alkaline hydrogen evolution reactions, the mass activity of Pt8V–V2O3@NPC reaches 10.6 times that of commercial Pt/C, while the half-wave potential for the oxygen reduction reaction is 0.89 V. The assembled ZABs demonstrate stable cycling performance over 5550 cycles at a current density of 5.0 mA cm–2, with negligible voltage decay. Likewise, AEMWEs incorporating this material exhibit stable operation for over 500 h at a current density of 1000 mA cm–2, with a voltage decay rate of only 0.14 mV h–1. Combined X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy and theoretical studies demonstrate that the interfacial electron transfer from V2O3 to Pt8V optimizes the d-band center of Pt8V–V2O3. This study proposes an interface electronic bridging strategy for the design of multifunctional electrocatalysts, which may provide support for the development of practical clean energy technologies.