Review—Recent Advance in Self-Supported Electrocatalysts for Rechargeable Zinc-Air Batteries
Peican Wang, Tong Jia, Baoguo Wang
Abstract
Rechargeable Zinc-air batteries are considered as the promising power source for energy storage. Air electrodes integrated with bifunctional electrocatalysts play a vital role in improving performance and reducing cost of zinc-air batteries. Recently, the self-supported bifunctional electrocatalysts synthesized by in situ growth of active materials on conductive substrates have gained increasing popularity, because they often provide high performance of both electrocatalytic activity and stability. In this work, we review the state-of-the-art development of self-supported non-precious-metal electrocatalysts, including carbon-based metal-free materials, transition metal materials, and metal-based hybrid materials, especially the efficient strategies (e.g., heteroatom doping, defect engineering and structures design, etc.) for preparation of self-supported electrocatalysts, as well as the understandings of fabrication mechanism. This review highlights the future development of excellent self-supported electrocatalysts for electrochemical devices.