Ag Anchored Atomically Around Nanopores of Porous Co(OH)2 for Efficient Bifunctional Oxygen Catalysis

Various clean energy storage and conversion systems highly depend on rational design of efficient electrocatalysts for oxygen reactions. Increasing both gas molecular diffusion and intrinsic activity is critical to boosting its efficiency for bifunctional oxygen electrocatalysis. However, controllable synthesis of catalysts that combines gas molecular diffusion and intrinsic activity remains a fundamental challenge. Herein, a two-step synthetic strategy is adopted to fabricate a composite oxygen reduction reaction (ORR)/oxygen evolution reaction (OER) bifunctional catalyst (P-Ag-Co(OH)₂), of which, atomic Ag is anchored in reactive oxygen atoms around nanopores of Co(OH)₂ nanosheets. Abundant nanopores provide enough gas molecular diffusion channels, and the special Ag-O-Co-OH catalytic groups around nanopores display high intrinsic catalytic activity, which jointly result in an excellent ORR/OER performance. In alkaline electrolyte, P-Ag-Co(OH)₂ displays a high half-wave potential (0.902 V versus RHE) for ORR, and a low overpotential (235 mV at 10 mA cm^?2) for OER, which is superior to non-noble catalysts in previous studies and Pt/C (Ir/C) catalyst. At the same time, the single-cell zinc-air battery is prepared with an extremely high discharge peak power density of 435 mW cm^?2 and excellent discharge–charge cycle stability.