Zheng Zhou's research while affiliated with The University of Sydney and other places

... As shown in Fig. 3g and the inset, Co K-edge moves to a higher energy position with the increasing cathodic bias from open-circuit potential (OCP) to 0.4 V, suggesting the increasing valence states of Co atoms. This probably results from the delocalization of the unpaired electron in the 3dx 2 -y 2 orbital and spontaneous charge transfer from Co (II) to the oxygen 2p orbital in O 2 to form an *OOH intermediate on the Co site 37,44 . It is worth noting that the Co valence state increases from 0.9 V to 0.7 V and reaches the plateau at 0.4 V, owing to the mass-transfer controlled diffusion of O 2 at 0.4 V that resulted in the limiting current of 2e − ORR, as indicated in Fig. 2d. ...

... Electrocatalytic OER is essential in many key energy conversion and storage systems, especially for water splitting electrolyzers and rechargeable metal-air batteries [1][2][3][4][5] . The OER involves multi-electron and multi-intermediates, thus pertinent electrocatalysts are imperative to expedite the reaction kinetics. ...

... Hexaazatrinaphthalene (HATN) is an electron-deficient and rigid planar aromatic molecule. As a cathode material, the HATN possesses a high theoretical capacity of 418 mAh g −1 for lithium storage [26,27]. However, the rapid capacity fade limits its application in practical LIBs. ...

... Although cost issue can be alleviated by developing sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) or potassium-ion batteries (PIBs) based on cheaper sodium or potassium metal anode, the safety and environmental concerns are difficult to be further addressed [17,18]. To this end, aqueous batteries using high safety and eco-friendliness aqueous electrolytes, especially for aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs), can well meet these requirements due to the abundant reserve, low cost, high theoretical capacity (820 mAh g −1 ), and low redox potential (− 0.76 V vs. standard hydrogen electrode) of Zn metal anode [16,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]. ...

... As for the durability of the LPE Bi 2 S 3 /SC, this material appears to be able to sustain at least 15 cycles of cyclic voltammetry at the scan rate of 50 mV/s ( Figure S8). LPE Bi2S3/SC was tested as electrocatalyst for HER at different pH values, as the pH may influence the stability and efficiency of the catalyst ( Figure S9) [30]. In acid condition (pH 0), three reduction peaks were revealed, thus indicating the instability of Bi2S3, likely Grazing incidence XRD (GI-XRD) patterns of the catalyst after HER and OER were collected to characterize the crystal structure of the nanosized Bi 2 S 3 after the durability test. ...

... Prussian blue analog (PBA) is a novel compound formed by replacing the iron element in Prussian blue (PB) with other elements such as cobalt and nickel without destroying the crystal structure [22]. It has been widely utilized in electrochemical energy storage [23], electrocatalysis [24], and other fields. It is worth noting that the redox of multiple metal ions occurs in PBA, which means that under certain conditions, PBA itself can provide a detection signal for electrochemical analyses. ...

... Guo et al. develop a simple method for loading ultrafine Mo2C nanoparticles onto N-doped carbon nanosheets to obtain mesoporous 2D nanosheets (MMo2C/NCS) with a unique mesoporous nature, which shows an excellent ORR catalytic activity (half-wave potential (E1/2) of 0.85 V) [12]. However, the high-temperature calcination not only causes the agglomeration of small particles during the synthesis process, but it also generates the corresponding metallic impurities, which may lead to the formation of large-sized Mo2C particles and reduce the number of active sites, ultimately lowering the electrocatalytic performance [13]. ...

... The raman spectrum of synthesized structure also was taken for further structural characterization. The raman peaks at 286 cm −1 and 618 cm −1 were observed which could be referred to the A g and B g modes of CuO, respectively ( Fig. 2b) [37][38][39]. The XRD pattern is shown in Fig. 2c which has no excessive peaks, and this verifies that the pure phase of CuO-PHS is formed. ...

... TMBs have also attracted a lot of interest for their special water splitting properties (132)(133)(134)(135)(136)(137). Boron to metal contrary electron transfer from will promote electrons to concentrate at the metal sites in certain amorphous TMB systems, enhancing the electrochemical reactions. ...

... Moreover, compared with Li, Zn metal is abundant in the earth's crust and economically feasible [12] and can be charged more efficiently in aqueous electrolytes. Therefore, in the light of all these environmental, economic and electrochemical characteristics, Zn is the most prosperous candidate among all other metal-air batteries [12,16,17]. ...