Covalent organic polymer derived N–doped carbon confined FeNi alloys as bifunctional oxygen electrocatalyst for rechargeable zinc-air battery

N–doped carbon confined FeNi alloys are promising candidate to noble Pt and IrO2 or RuO2 for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in rechargeable zinc-air batteries. However, it is difficult to control the distribution of transition metals in the precursor and electrocatalyst. Herein, we design a covalent organic polymer to realize the uniform distribution of metal, nitrogen and carbon precursors. The structure of the obtained electrocatalyst is FeNi nanoparticles coated with carbon shells dispersed on N-doped multilayer porous carbon ([email protected]). The resultant [email protected] delivered a half-wave potential for ORR of 0.878 V and a low potential of 1.59 V to achieve 10 mA cm−2 for OER, which surpasses commercial platinum/carbon and ruthenium dioxide. The outstanding bifunctional properties of [email protected] attribute to the synergistic coupling between N-doped carbon shells and dense FeNi nanoparticles. Moreover, the self-made zinc-air battery with [email protected] air-cathode displayed an excellent energy density of 137.7 mW cm−2 as well as cycling stability (100 h, 200 cycles).