Revealing the Local Cathodic Interfacial Chemism Inconsistency in a Practical Large-Sized Li-O Model Battery with High Energy Density to Underpin Its Key Cyclic Constraints.

Due to the theoretical ultrahigh energy density of the Li-O battery chemistry, it has been hailed as the ultimate battery technology. Yet, practical Li-O batteries usually need to be designed in a large-sized pattern to actualize a high specific energy density, and such batteries often cannot be cycled effectively. To understand the inherent reasons, we specially prepared large-sized (13 cm × 13 cm) Li-O model batteries with practical energy output (6.

Principle understanding towards synthesizing Fe/N decorated carbon catalysts with pyridinic-N enriched and agglomeration-free features for lithium-oxygen batteries.

Metal-N-decorated carbon catalysts are cheap and effective alternatives for replacing the high-priced Pt-based ones in activating the reduction of oxygen for metal-air or fuel cells. The preparation of such heterogeneous catalysts often requires complex synthesis processes, including harsh acid treatment, secondary pyrolysis processes, etching, , to make the heteroatoms evenly dispersed in the carbon substrates to obtain enhanced activities. Through combined experimental characterizations, we found that by precise control of the precursors added, a Fe/N uniformly distributed, agglomeration-free Fe/N decorated Super-P carbon material (FNDSP) can be easily obtained by a one-pot synthesis process with distinctly higher pyridinic-N content and elevated catalytic activity.