Looking to address this, a team from UNIST in Korea, along with Nanjing University of Science and Technology, has developed a nanofibre perovskite based catalyst that provides levels of performance similar to those of precious metals, but at much lower cost.
According to the research team, the nanofibre has improved the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). In particular, the OER performance is said to be nine times higher than that of IrO2 at an overpotential of 0.3V. The catalyst was also said to show ‘notable charge-discharge stability’ in zinc-air batteries, even at high current density.
According to UNIST researcher Professor Guntae Kim: “We envision that the high electrochemical and catalytic performance of this material will play a major role in the commercialisation of metal-air batteries. Metal-air battery technology is still in its infancy and extensive additional research efforts appear to be required before a viable commercial implementation is developed.
“However, as many global corporates, such as IBM, Toyota, and Samsung Electronics, are already working on the development of metal-air batteries, the technical challenges could soon be cleared out in a much faster pace than anticipated.”