MnIII-enriched α-MnO2 nanowires as efficient bifunctional oxygen catalysts for rechargeable Zn-air batteries

Abstract The development of highly efficient bifunctional catalysts for OER and ORR is crucial for improving the efficiency of metal−air batteries. Herein we report a high-performance bifunctional oxygen catalyst of α-MnO2 nanowires synthesized using ionic liquid (IL) as the structure-directing agent. While increasing the IL addition enables to gradually transform the reaction products from β-MnO2 nanorods to α-MnO2 nanowires, increasing the reaction time enables to further improve their crystallinity. For both OER and ORR activities, the same trend was found following β-MnO2 nanorods