Potassium Cobalt Pyrophosphate as a Nonprecious Bifunctional Electrocatalyst for Zinc–Air Batteries

Economic and sustainable (ecological) energy storage forms a major pillar of the global energy sector. Bifunctional electrocatalysts, based on oxygen electrolysis, play a key role in the development of rechargeable metal–air batteries. Pursuing precious metal-free economic catalysts, here, we report K2CoP2O7 pyrophosphate as a robust cathode for secondary zinc–air batteries with efficient oxygen evolution and oxygen reduction (OER||ORR) activity. Prepared by autocombustion, nanoscale K2CoP2O7 exhibited excellent oxygen reduction and evolution reactions among all phosphate-based electrocatalysts. In particular, the OER activity surpassed that of commercial RuO2 with low overpotential (0.27 V). First-principles calculations revealed that the bifunctional activity is rooted in the Co active site with the CoO5 local coordination in the most stable (110) surface. This nanostructured (tetragonal) pyrophosphate can be harnessed as an economic bifunctional catalyst for zinc–air batteries.