Amorphous/crystal hybrid cerium-based Mott-Schottky heterojunction as a bifunctional electrocatalyst

Zinc-air batteries (ZABs) are potential energy storage and conversion devices, but the poor performances of bifunctional electrocatalysts at the cathode are becoming a bottleneck. Herein, we first chose the rare-earth metal cerium (Ce) as the source to synthesize the amorphous/crystal hybrid Ce/Ce 2 O 2 S-MS Mott-Schottky heterojunction. Among the Ce/Ce 2 O 2 S-MS series, the Ce/Ce 2 O 2 S 1-x -MS shows the best bifunctional electrocatalytic performances with the half-wave potential of 0.76 V for ORR and OER potential of 1.59 V at 10 mA cm −2 , and the Δ E value is 0.83 V. The special 4f structure of Ce combined with the Mott-Schottky heterojunction provides full active sites and promotes electron transfer at the interface of heterojunction. Our study provides a potential conception for Ce-based bifunctional electrocatalysts applied in the ZABs.