Gorgeous turn-back: Rough surface treatment strategy induces Cu-C and N-C active moieties for bifunctional oxygen electrocatalysis

Fabricating inexpensive and quality bifunctional catalysts for catalyzing oxygen reduction/evolution reactions (ORR/OER) is urgent for the wide application of zinc-air batteries (ZAB). Herein, a bifunctional catalyst, nitrogen-doped graphdiyne (Cu NPs/NGDY) with Cu-C and N-C active moieties, is fabricated through pyrolysis. Cu NPs/NGDY exhibits excellent catalytic performance towards ORR (E1/2 = 0.86 V), stability of 86.5% current retention for 24 h and OER (Ej=10 = 360 mV). Experimental results and theoretical calculations reveal the vital role of Cu-C and nitrogen doping in regulating electrocatalytic activity. Assembled with Cu NPs/NGDY as electrocatalyst, both the liquid-state and flexible ZABs exhibit high power density and barely changed gap between discharge and charge voltage with robust stability, demonstrating tremendous potential in the field of wearable-related equipment. This work develops a simple strategy to fabricate GDY -based bifunctional catalyst.