Research

• Flexible design of Zn-air batteries

− The flexibility of each component in the batteries has been considered as a key issue

− Spiral zinc metal, gel polymer electrolyte, air electrode, punched thermal contraction rubber cable

• Flow type Zn-air batteries

− Zn-air flow batteries consisting of zinc metal anode, catalyst containing air electrode, 6 M KOH electrolyte and pump

− The circulation of electrolyte effectively removes the deposited ZnO particles on the surface of air electrode, resulting from the   saturation of Zn(OH)42− on discharging

• Bi-functional electrocatalysts

− To faciliate the kinetics of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER)

− To demonstrate the rechargeable Zn-air batteries using the bi-functional electrocatalysts

• Pyrochlore oxides

− Development of a variety of pyrochlore oxides (A2B2O7) as bi-functional electrocatalysts for ORR and OER, including metallic lead   ruthenate (Pb2Ru2O6.5 ), nano-sized yttrium ruthenate (Y2Ru2O7 ) and polyhedral shaped bismuth ruthenate (Bi2Ru2O7 ), etc

• Setup for in situ XAS analysis

− A combination of X-ray beam line with three-electrode electrochemical cell

• Cyclic voltammetry (CV) test

− CV was performed in the forward and backward sweeps simultaneously with XAS analysis

• Tracking the structural change and chemical behavior of bi-functional electrocatalysts

− Revealing the correlation of highly improved catalytic activity of pyrochlore oxides (A2B2O7) to the changes of electron configurations   and local structures of A- and B-site cations during ORR and OER