Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 6, 2026

Zinc-Sponge Battery Electrodes that Suppress Dendrites
Published on: September 29, 2020
Highly crumpled nanocarbons as efficient metal-free electrocatalysts for zinc-air batteries
Yukun Xiao1, Zhihua Cheng, Yang Zhao
1Key Laboratory of Cluster Science, Ministry of Education of China, Beijing Key laboratory of Photoelectronic/Electrophotonic Conversion Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institution of Technology, Beijing 100081, P. R. China. lqu@bit.edu.cn yzhao@bit.edu.cn.
Abstract:
The rational design of an efficient and robust oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalyst is vital for energy conversion and storage systems, especially for metal-air batteries. Herein, we report a highly nanocrumpled and nitrogen, phosphorus-codoped nanocarbon (NC-NPC) synthesized by direct pyrolysis of melamine and triphenylphosphine. With the rich nano-crumpled structure and codoping of heteroatoms, this low-cost catalyst exhibits an excellent ORR performance, and possesses a half-wave potential of 0.84 V vs. RHE, a small Tafel slope of 70.2 mV dec-1, and good electrocatalytic stability. More importantly, it can also be applied in zinc-air batteries as an efficient electrode which delivers an open-circle voltage of 1.38 V, a specific capacity of 782 mA h gZn-1, and a long cycling life of 210 h, superior to the commercial Pt/C catalyst.
Related Concept Videos
Batteries and Fuel Cells
Metallic Solids
All metallic solids exhibit high thermal and electrical conductivity, metallic luster, and malleability....
Alkali Metals
Table 1: Properties of the alkali metals
DC Battery
Bonding in Metals
Metal-Ligand Bonds
In these complexes, transition metals form coordinate covalent bonds, a kind of Lewis acid-base interaction in which both of the electrons in the bond are contributed by a donor (Lewis base) to an electron acceptor (Lewis acid). The Lewis acid in...

