Fe-N-C catalysts decorated with oxygen vacancies-rich CeO to increase oxygen reduction performance for Zn-air batteries.

Platinum group metal (PGM)-free catalysts represented by nitrogen and iron co-doped carbon (Fe-N-C) catalysts are desirable and critical for metal-air batteries, but challenges still exist in performance and stability. Here, cerium oxides (CeO) are incorporated into a two-dimensional Fe-N-C catalyst (FeNC-Ce-950) via a host-guest strategy. The Ce/Ce redox system creates a large number of oxygen vacancies for rapid O adsorption to accelerate the kinetics of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR).