Ni3FeN-Supported Fe3Pt Intermetallic Nanoalloy as a High-Performance Bifunctional Catalyst for Metal-Air Batteries

Electrocatalysts for both the oxygen reduction and evolution reactions (ORR and OER) are vital for the performances of rechargeable metal-air batteries. Herein, we report an advanced bifunctional oxygen electrocatalyst consisting of porous metallic nickel-iron nitride (Ni3FeN) supporting ordered Fe3Pt intermetallic nanoalloy. In this hybrid catalyst, the bimetallic nitride Ni3FeN mainly contributes to the high activity for the OER while the ordered Fe3Pt nanoalloy contributes to the excellent activity for the ORR. Robust Ni3FeN-supported Fe3Pt catalysts show superior catalytic performance to the state-of-the-art ORR catalyst (Pt/C) and OER catalyst (Ir/C). The Fe3Pt/Ni3FeN bifunctional catalyst enables Zn-air batteries to achieve a long-term cycling performance of over 480 h at 10 mA cm(-2) with high efficiency. The extraordinarily high performance of the Fe3Pt/Ni3FeN bifunctional catalyst makes it a very promising air cathode in alkaline electrolyte.