Advancing Flexible Zinc Air Battery: Exploring Non‐Noble Metal Oxides for Enhanced Electronic Structure Modulation in Scalable Engineering Design
Advancing flexible zinc-air batteries requires cost-effective, durable bifunctional catalysts capable of efficiently driving both oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Here, we report a scalable reflux-calcination strategy to prepare hierarchical flower-like Fe-Mo oxides (FeMoO). The engineered Fe-O-Mo interactions effectively tune the electronic structure, lower adsorption energy barriers, and accelerate charge-transfer kinetics. Among the series, Fe<sub>0.25</sub>Mo<sub>0.75</sub>O (FeMoO-III) exhibited excellent OER activity with an overpotential of 240 mV at 10 mA cm<sup>-2</sup> and remarkable stability exceeding 200 h at 50 mA cm<sup>-2</sup>. Concurrently, ORR studies revealed a high half-wave potential (0.86 V) and outstanding durability, confirming its bifunctional performance. When integrated into a rechargeable zinc-air battery, FeMoO-III delivered a high open-circuit voltage of 1.51 V and sustained charge-discharge cycling over 175 h. Moreover, in a flexible quasi-solid-state zinc-air battery, the FeMoO-III cathode maintained stable operation for more than 56 h at 5 mA cm<sup>-2</sup>, underscoring its suitability for wearable energy devices. This work demonstrates that rational modulation of non-noble oxide electronic structures through Fe-Mo synergy offers a practical pathway toward scalable, high-performance, and flexible zinc-air batteries.
Authors
- Anoopa Ann Thomas
- Mohan Raj Subramaniam
- Vijayapradeep Subramanian
- DONG JIN YOO
- Muthu Austeria P
- S.C. Karthikeyan
Institutions
- Jain University (IN)
- Jeonju National University of Education (KR)
- KPR Institute of Engineering and Technology (IN)
- Jeonbuk National University (KR)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Small
- Published
- 2026-01-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202512027
- Primary Topic
- Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Ministry of Education, India
- Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning