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Highly Stable Oxygen Electrodes Enabled by Catalyst Redistribution through an In Situ Electrochemical Method
Author(s) -
Liu Bin,
Xu Wu,
Luo Langli,
Zheng Jianming,
Ren Xiaodi,
Wang Hui,
Engelhard Mark H.,
Wang Chongmin,
Zhang JiGuang
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
advanced energy materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 10.08
H-Index - 220
eISSN - 1614-6840
pISSN - 1614-6832
DOI - 10.1002/aenm.201803598
Subject(s) - catalysis , materials science , electrochemistry , redistribution (election) , electrolyte , electrode , chemical engineering , anode , oxygen , carbon nanotube , in situ , oxygen evolution , nanotechnology , chemistry , organic chemistry , politics , political science , law , engineering
In this work, for the first time an in situ electrochemical pretreatment approach to fabricate a highly reversible oxygen electrode with redistributed ultrafine RuO 2 catalysts on a carbon nanotube (CNT) matrix is reported. The optimally pretreated RuO 2 /CNT oxygen electrodes demonstrate an extremely stable cycling life, 800 times with non‐Li metal anode, under a capacity‐limited protocol of 800 mAh g −1 in an ether‐based electrolyte in an O 2 environment. The highly stable activity of ultrafine RuO 2 catalysts in oxygen reduction and evolution processes originates from the synergetic effect of greatly reduced size of catalyst (<2 nm) and uniform redistribution of catalyst particles after the in situ electrochemical pretreatment process. The pretreatment method discovered in this work can not only significantly enhance the activity/efficiency of the catalysts used for air electrodes but can also be widely applied to other electro‐catalysis systems.