Stabilizing Pt by Introducing TaON to Enhance the Long-Term Stability in Zinc-Air Batteries

For many years, the application of zinc-air batteries (ZABs) has been plagued by the limited durability of platinum (Pt)-based catalysts. Here, we overcome this problem by adopting an intelligent catalyst design, introducing tantalum (oxy)nitrides (TaON) as a carrier to store oxygen species and simultaneously suppress the oxidation and dissolution of Pt. Thanks to the corrosion resistance of TaON and the strong metal-support interaction, the 10%Pt/TaON/C catalyst shows negligible activity decay after 5000 cyclic voltammetry cycles and maintains excellent charge-discharge cycling performance for 700 h in ZABs. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and theoretical calculations indicate that the introduction of TaON facilitates the rearrangement of interfacial charges, thereby enhancing the covalency of the Pt-C bond in 10%Pt/TaON/C.