Doping of Self-Standing CNT Fibers: Promising Flexible Air-Cathodes for High Energy Density Structural Zn-air batteries

TL;DR

This paper develops nitrogen-doped CNT fiber-based self-standing air cathodes with enhanced bifunctional catalytic activity, leading to high-performance, flexible Zn-air batteries with high energy density and stability.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to produce bifunctional CNT fiber catalysts with tunable properties for flexible Zn-air batteries.

Findings

Achieved high energy density of 838 Wh/kg in Zn-air batteries.

Demonstrated excellent stability and low overpotential in rechargeable batteries.

Developed a simple process for creating high-performance self-standing air electrodes.

Abstract

Finding proper electrocatalysts capable of efficient catalyzing both ORR and OER is of great importance for metal-air batteries. With increasing inclination towards structural and flexible devices, developing a high-performance self-standing air-cathode is highly demanded and challenging, as most of oxygen catalysts are powder and need to be further processed. Here, we construct highly bifunctional air catalyst from macroscopic CNT fibers (CNTf) through direct CVD spinning followed by hydrothermal method. The electrocatalytic properties of the samples were tuned by altering nitrogen-doping and defect densities readily adjusted at different hydrothermal reaction temperatures. The treated CNTfs showed excellent bifunctional activity ({\Delta}E=Ej=10-E1/2=0.81 V) and demonstrated exceptional performance as carbon-based self-standing air-cathodes in liquid and solid-state rechargeable Zn-air batteries, with high capacity of 698 mAh g-1 and ultrahigh energy density of 838 Wh kg-1. The rechargeable Zn-air batteries exhibit a low discharge-charge overpotential and excellent stability. This work provides novel simply achieved self-standing air electrodes with exceptional performance for structural Zn-air batteries.