FeCo nanoclusters inserted N,S –doped carbon foams as bifunctional electrocatalyst for high-performance rechargeable Zn-air batteries

The availability of high-performance biofunctional electrocatalysts is the enabler for the wide commercialization of Zn-air batteries (ZAB). In this work, a bifunctional electrocatalyst FeCo/1:2/PNSC is developed by embedding FeCo nanoclusters into porous N,S-doped carbon foams (PNSC). The results show that the highly-dispersed FeCo nanoclusters provided more active sits for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The modulated electronic structure of heterojunction is found to accelerate the ORR/OER kinetic behaviors. The optimal FeCo/1:2/PNSC sample exhibits the excellent bifunctional oxygen catalytic activities with the half-wave potential of 0.86 V for ORR and the overpotential of 298 mV for OER at 20 mA cm−2 in alkaline electrolyte. This outperforms the commercial catalysts of Pt/C and RuO2. The constructed FeCo/1:2/PNSC-based ZAB cell displays high power density and long-term cyclability.