Biochar made from and applied as a bifunctional electrocatalyst in Zn-air batteries.

Biochar has been prepared by pyrolysis of (the vegetable sponge produced by ) and activated by mixing the pyrolyzed powder with KOH and pyrolyzed again. Non-activated and activated biochar have both been structurally and then electrochemically characterized to record their differences and assess their suitability as bifunctional oxygen reduction and oxygen evolution reaction electrocatalysts in Zn-air batteries. Non activated biochar carries several functional groups; however, the activation procedure led to a material with mainly O and Mg groups.