Zhang, D.; Zhang, K.; Xie, Z.; Xu, B.; Hou, M.; Lei, Y.; Watanabe, T.; Yang, B.; Liang, F. Intrinsic Properties Affecting the Catalytic Activity toward Oxygen Reduction Reaction of Nanostructured Transition Metal Nitrides as Catalysts for Hybrid Na-Air Batteries. Materials2023, 16, 7469.
Zhang, D.; Zhang, K.; Xie, Z.; Xu, B.; Hou, M.; Lei, Y.; Watanabe, T.; Yang, B.; Liang, F. Intrinsic Properties Affecting the Catalytic Activity toward Oxygen Reduction Reaction of Nanostructured Transition Metal Nitrides as Catalysts for Hybrid Na-Air Batteries. Materials 2023, 16, 7469.
Zhang, D.; Zhang, K.; Xie, Z.; Xu, B.; Hou, M.; Lei, Y.; Watanabe, T.; Yang, B.; Liang, F. Intrinsic Properties Affecting the Catalytic Activity toward Oxygen Reduction Reaction of Nanostructured Transition Metal Nitrides as Catalysts for Hybrid Na-Air Batteries. Materials2023, 16, 7469.
Zhang, D.; Zhang, K.; Xie, Z.; Xu, B.; Hou, M.; Lei, Y.; Watanabe, T.; Yang, B.; Liang, F. Intrinsic Properties Affecting the Catalytic Activity toward Oxygen Reduction Reaction of Nanostructured Transition Metal Nitrides as Catalysts for Hybrid Na-Air Batteries. Materials 2023, 16, 7469.
Abstract
Nanostructured transition metal nitrides (TMNs) have been considered a promising substitute for precious metal catalysts toward ORR due to their multi-electron orbitals, metallic properties, and low cost. To design TMNs catalysts with high catalytic activity toward ORR, the intrinsic features of the influencing factor on the catalytic activity toward ORR of nanostructured TMNs need to be investigated. In the paper, titanium nitride (TiN), zirconium nitride (ZrN), and hafnium nitride (HfN) nanoparticles (NPs) are high-efficiency and one-step synthesized by the direct current arc plasma. TiN, ZrN, and HfN NPs with an oxidation layer are applied as the catalysts of hybrid sodium-air batteries (HSABs). The effect of composition and structure attributes of TMNs on ORR catalysis is defined as follows. (ⅰ) Composition effect. With the increase of the oxygen content, the catalytic ORR capability of TMNs decreases progressively due to the reduction of oxygen adsorption capacity; (ⅱ) Structure effect. The redistribution of the density of states (DOS) of ZrN indicates higher ORR activity than TiN and HfN. HSABs with ZrN exhibit an excellent cyclic stability up to 137 cycles (about 140 h), an outstanding rate performance, and a specific capacity of 2817 mAh·g−1 at 1.0 mA·cm−2.
Keywords
Transition metal nitride nanoparticles; Arc discharge; Efficient production; Influence factor; Production cost
Subject
Engineering, Metallurgy and Metallurgical Engineering
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
