A photo-responsive bifunctional electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction and evolution reactions

The Ni12P5@NCNT hybrid catalyst with both ORR (onset potential at 0.90 V vs. RHE) and OER (η = 360 mV @10 mA cm−2) activity in 0.1 M KOH solution was equipped as the cathode in a rechargeable Zn-air battery, which exhibited a low charge-discharge voltage gap (~ 0.75 V @ 10 mA cm−2) and further decrease to 0.68 V under light irradiation. The irradiation caused extremely high the round-trip efficiency of ~ 64.2%.166