Combined Electron and Structure Manipulation on Fe-Containing N-Doped Carbon Nanotubes To Boost Bifunctional Oxygen Electrocatalysis

It is a challenge to synthesize highly efficient nonprecious metal electrocatalysts with a well-defined nanostructure and rich active species. Herein, through electron engineering and structure manipulation simultaneously, we constructed Fe-embedded pyridinic-N-dominated carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on ordered mesoporous carbon, showing excellent oxygen reduction reaction activity (half-wave potential, 0.85 V) and an overpotential of 420 mV to achieve 10 mA cm(-2) for oxygen evolution reaction in alkaline media (potential difference, 0.80 V). Density functional theory calculation indicates those Fe@N-4 clusters improve charge transfer and further promote the electrocatalytic reactivity of the functionalized region in CNTs. Rechargeable Zn-air batteries were assembled, displaying robust charging-discharging cycling performance (over 90 h) with voltage gap of only 0.08 V, much lower than that of the Pt/C + Ir/C electrode (0.29 V). This work presents a highly active nonprecious metal-based bifunctional catalyst toward air electrode for energy conversion.