https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-023-00894-6
Regular Article
On the performance of carbon-free zinc-air rechargeable batteries: characterization of some perovskite oxides as catalysts in gas diffusion electrodes
1
Institute of Electronics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1784, Sofia, Bulgaria
2
Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1784, Sofia, Bulgaria
3
Institute of Electrochemistry and Energy Systems, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1113, Sofia, Bulgaria
4
Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1113, Sofia, Bulgaria
Received:
10
October
2022
Accepted:
15
May
2023
Published online:
7
June
2023
High-capacity rechargeable batteries play an important role at integrating and optimizing the consumption of the energy from renewable sources and the metal-air battery is currently considered the most promising for such applications. Among them, the Zn-air rechargeable battery has attracted considerable attention because of theoretically much higher energy density, lower operational cost, longer cycle life, higher safety, and environmental compatibility. Rechargeability can be improved by developing new bifunctional oxygen electrocatalysts that facilitate both the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Of the various catalysts, the perovskite-like structured oxides are intensively studied because of their inherent catalytic activity and structural flexibility to adopt large range of cation substitutions. Here, we report on a new design of air electrode using perovskites for the so called “monolithic” carbon-free gas diffusion electrode (GDEs) where the traditional gas diffusion layer made from carbon-based material is avoided and thus the corrosion rate is reduced. The structural details of the employed LSM (La0.80Sr0.20MnO3-δ) and LSCF (La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3-δ) perovskites are addressed. The properties of these oxides are strongly determined by the oxidation states of the constituent cations and their distribution. For improving fundamental understanding of material properties relevant to the rechargeability, sensitive techniques such as neutron and X-ray diffraction combined with scanning electron microscopy were applied. The electrochemical characterization involving volt–ampere characteristics and charge/discharge tests were performed. The results were compared with the state-of-the-art carbon-based GDE and confirmed that the studied catalysts can successfully replace the classical catalysts containing a precious metal and carbon support. The LSM-based GDE demonstrated better electrochemical performance.
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