Screening and Coupling Effects Jointly Construct Heteroatom Doping to Facilitate Efficient Bi-Functional Catalysis in Zinc–Air Batteries

The zinc-air batteries exhibit great development potential because of high-energy density, safety, and environmental protection. However, they are constrained by the high cost of precious catalysts and the slow kinetics of oxygen electrocatalysis. The current preparation process of bi-functional catalysts with considerable performance has poor universality and is difficult to achieve large-scale production. Herein, carbon materials doped with heteroatoms (C&H) were synthesized through screening of element redox reaction tendencies and the strategy of cooperative construction. The synergistic coupling of carbon substrate, transition metals, and non-metals jointly achieves excellent bi-functional oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalytic activities. Compared to commercial 20% Pt/C-RuO₂, C&H-300 demonstrates higher power density (123 mW cm⁻²), specific capacity (745.5 mAh g_Zn⁻¹), ultra-long cycle life of over 1200 h at 10.0 mA cm⁻², which is superior to most related reports in the same field. Moreover, the assembled flexible zinc-air battery with C&H-300 shows no significant performance decline after undergoing a series of deformations. This study provides a simple and feasible strategy for the efficient and large-scale preparation of highly efficient non-noble metal bi-functional catalysts.