Chem. J. Chinese Universities ›› 2022, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (11): 20220421.doi: 10.7503/cjcu20220421

• Physical Chemistry • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of Cu, Ni and Co Hetroatoms on Constructions and Electrocatalytic Properties of Fe-based Carbon Nanotubes

DING Qin, ZHANG Zixuan, XU Peicheng, LI Xiaoyu, DUAN Limei, WANG Yin(), LIU Jinghai()   

  1. Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Carbon Nanomaterials,Nano Innovation Institute,College of Chemistry and Materials Science,Inner Mongolia Minzu University,Tongliao 028000,China
  • Received:2022-06-14 Online:2022-11-10 Published:2022-08-22
  • Contact: WANG Yin,LIU Jinghai E-mail:ywang@imun.edu.cn;jhliu2008@sinano.ac.cn
  • Supported by:
    the National Natural Science Foundation of China(21961024);the Natural Science Foundation of Inner Mongolia, China(2018JQ05);the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Funding Project for Science & Technology Achievement Transformation, China(CGZH2018156);the Doctoral Scientific Research Foundation of Inner Mongolia Minzu University, China(BS437)

Abstract:

With the development of human society, the problems of energy crisis and environmental pollution increase obviously. In order to face these problems, developing a series of new energy storage devices is significance. Zn-air batteries(ZABs) is one of high specific volume density and low cost storage devices, which has been studied extensively. In this study, three double metal-based carbon nanotubes(CuFe@NCNTs, NiFe@NCNTs and CoFe@NCNTs) were obtained by adding Cu, Ni and Co as heteroatoms during the preparation of Fe-based carbon nanotubes and were used as the oxygen electrodes for ZABs. Then, scanning electron microscope(SEM), N2 adsorption-desorption isotherms were used to characterize the microstructures of samples. X-ray diffraction(XRD), X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy(XPS) and Raman spectrum analysis were tested to confirm their chemical composition. The results show that carbon nanotubes could be synthesized successfully with all of three metal couples. However, the different metals doping nanotubes show the great difference on their morphologies and compositions. Cu elements doping shows the least influence on the structure of nanotubes. Besides, the chemical compositions and graphitization rations of carbon nanotubes were obviously changed after doped by all three heteroatoms. Simultaneously, three double metal carbon nanotubes exhibit bifunctional electrocatalytic performances both in oxygen reduction reaction(ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction(OER). CuFe@NCNTs shows the greatest performances for ORR[onset potential is 0.92 V(vs. RHE) and half-wave potential is 0.81 V(vs. RHE)] in three samples. NiFe@NCNTs shows the superior activities for OER(only a potential of 1.58 V is needed to reach a current density of 10 mA/cm2), which is even better than that of IrO2. Among the three assembled ZABs, CuFe@NCNTs based ZABs demonstrate a peak power density of 53 mW/cm2, both of NiFe@NCNTs based ZABs and CoFe@NCNTs based ZABs show excellent discharge rate capabilities. All of three cells show great cycles lifetime longer than 150 h, outperform Pt/C-IrO2 one.

Key words: Carbon nanotubes, Transition metal, Bifunctional electrocatalysis, Zn-air battery

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