Summary of the achievements of Professor Hu Wenbin's team in the field of energy battery materials in 2019

The development of sustainable energy technology is of great significance to alleviate the increasingly serious environmental pollution and realize the sustainable economic growth In recent years, due to the limitation of theoretical energy density of materials, the further development of lithium-ion batteries has encountered many technical bottlenecks, and the problems of high cost, safety, and difficult recovery caused by lithium-ion cell have not been solved Therefore, people began to explore more efficient and low-cost new energy batteries, such as metal air batteries, which are expected to become the next generation of electrochemical energy storage batteries due to their high theoretical energy density Among all kinds of metal air battery technology, zinc air battery has a bright future because of its high energy density, low cost, safety and environmental protection However, it is still a big challenge to explore and develop high capacity and high stability zinc air battery electrode materials and electrolytes In view of this subject, Professor Hu Wenbin of Tianjin University has carried out a series of in-depth research, and made some progress in the design and mechanism of energy battery electrode materials, research and development of flexible wearable battery devices, etc In 2019, the research group published 33 SCI papers in the field of energy battery materials in the journals of NAT Commun., adv mater., adv energy mater., and many of them were selected as cover papers Prof Hu Wenbin: Professor Hu Wenbin: doctoral supervisor, government subsidy recipient of the State Council, now dean of School of materials, Tianjin University Winner of the national Distinguished Young Scholars fund, leader of the national ten thousand talents plan, member of the theme expert group in the field of new materials under the "863" plan of the Ministry of science and technology of the people's Republic of China, who has been engaged in the research of key energy materials and surface interface science and engineering for a long time, is the person in charge of the innovation team in the key fields of the Ministry of science and technology and Tianjin He has published more than 300 papers included in SCI and 4 books or textbooks in academic journals at home and abroad It has obtained more than 50 invention patents authorized by the state As the first adult, he won one second prize of national science and Technology Progress Award and three first prizes of provincial and ministerial level He has successively served as senior director of Youth Committee of China Society of materials research, executive director of corrosion and protection society, editorial board member of Science China materials, Journal of inorganic materials, Journal of China Nonferrous Metals and other academic journals Professor Deng Yida: Ph.D supervisor, received Ph.D from Shanghai Jiaotong University in 2006 He has been engaged in structural control and functional regulation research of metal micro / nano functional materials for a long time He has successively presided over more than 20 scientific research projects such as 2 key research and development projects of the Ministry of science and technology, 2 general projects of the National Natural Science Foundation, 1 project for young people, etc He has published 132 SCI papers, cited more than 2400 times, and cited 10 papers with high ESI The research achievements won one second prize of national science and technology progress (fifth) and two first prizes of provincial and ministerial science and technology progress Professor Zhong Cheng: doctoral supervisor He received his bachelor's degree from Fudan University in 2004 and his doctor's degree from Fudan University in 2009 It has been selected into the top talents program of the national ten thousand talents program, the National Science Fund for outstanding young scholars, Tianjin Science Fund for outstanding young scholars and other talent programs Presided over the subproject of national key R & D plan, general project of National Natural Science Foundation, etc Deputy editor in chief of frontiers in chemistry and editorial board member of International Journal of Minerals Metallurgy and materials He has published more than 130 papers included in SCI and one English book in chem.soc Rev., nature comm adv mater., ACS energy letters, adv energy mater., angel Chem Int ed., ACS Nano and other journals It has obtained more than 10 invention patents authorized by the state, and many patents have been transferred Professor Ding Jia: doctoral supervisor, selected into the youth program of overseas high-level talent introduction plan Long term and in-depth research on key materials and advanced technologies for electrochemical energy storage has been carried out, with the first / corresponding authors at adv mater., energy energy energy SCI., chem Rev., ACS Nano, angelw Chem, More than 30 papers have been published in int ed., adv energy mater and other internationally renowned academic journals, and 8 papers have been selected as ESI hot papers and highly cited papers, with more than 3000 citations It has applied for 6 U.S patents and authorized 1 Invited as reviewer of international academic journals in the field of chemistry and materials, including nat.commun., adv energy mater Han Xiaopeng, associate professor, received his doctorate from Nankai University in 2015 and worked as a visiting scholar at Hong Kong University of science and technology in 2019 He is mainly engaged in structural adjustment and control preparation of energy micro nano materials and device performance research, presided over general and youth projects of National Natural Science Foundation of China, published more than 100 SCI papers in nature commin., adv mater., angel Chem Int ed and other journals, and was cited more than 4600 times, 17 ESI high cited, h-index = 35; applied for national invention patent 20 He was selected as the guest editor of front Chem Journal and won the first prize of Tianjin Natural Science Chen Yanan, Associate Professor: in 2017, he received the Ph.D degree in Metallurgical Engineering / materials from Beijing University of science and technology / University of Maryland, USA, and was selected as an outstanding scholar in the center of advanced innovation of the school of life sciences of Tsinghua University from 2017 to 2019 In May 2019, he was selected as an associate professor of School of materials, Tianjin University Mainly engaged in the preparation of new materials and their application in energy, environment and biology Preside over major research plans (cultivation projects), etc Nearly 50 research papers have been published in nature energy, nature comm., science advanced, JACS, PNAs, and advanced Mater Among them, more than 20 research papers have been published in high impact journals (if > 10) by the first / corresponding author, and more than 2100 citations have been cited Many papers have been selected as high cited papers It has applied for 4 US patents and many domestic patents Liu Jie, Lecturer: graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University in 2015 with a Ph.D in materials engineering In December 2015, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher in school of materials science and engineering, Tianjin University Since February 2017, he has been a lecturer of Tianjin University This paper mainly studies the shape and structure control and performance of new energy materials He has successively undertaken projects such as youth fund of National Natural Science Foundation of China, projects entrusted by enterprises, etc Cutting edge research achievements 1: design and mechanism research of energy battery electrode materials 1 Utilizingsolar energy to improve the oxygen evolution reaction kinetics in zinc – air battery Xiaorui Liu, Yifei yuan, Jie Liu, bin Liu, Xu Chen, Jiading, xiaoopeng Han, Yida Deng, Cheng Zhong, * Wenbin Hu * nature communications 2019, 10, 4767 Brief introduction: solar cell and metal air cell are two systems that convert different forms of energy into electric energy Solar cells can only convert light energy into real-time electric energy, but they can't be used for electric energy storage Rechargeable metal air battery can store energy through oxygen precipitation reaction (OER) However, in the charging process, due to the slow oxygen precipitation reaction of the air cathode, it faces the serious challenge of high charging potential, resulting in the side reaction of the air cathode, reducing the cycle life and energy efficiency of the battery In theory, the two battery systems can be combined for efficient conversion and storage of electric energy However, there are few related researches In this paper, the photoelectric pole is introduced into the zinc air battery innovatively (Figure 1) Zinc air battery is widely concerned because of its high theoretical energy density, environmental friendly characteristics, low cost, good security and other advantages BiVO 4 and α - Fe 2O 3 were used as the air electrodes of the zinc air battery The charging voltage of ~ 1.20 and ~ 1.43 V were achieved under the illumination, which was significantly lower than the theoretical voltage of zinc air battery (1.65 V) Compared with the traditional zinc air battery, the charging voltage (~ 2V) drops by ~ 0.5 – 0.8V, which greatly improves the energy efficiency of the battery In addition, this work reveals the mechanism of realizing low charging voltage in the process of light assisted charging by comparing the battery performance of two kinds of photoelectric poles, and the conditions that the energy band structure of the photoelectric pole applied in zinc air battery needs to meet, and expounds the important influence of the stability of the photoelectric pole on the battery performance Figure 1 (a) structure and working mechanism of solar assisted rechargeable zinc air battery (b) The mechanism analysis of the charging process based on two kinds of photoelectric poles 2 AtomicallyDispersed Binary Co-Ni Sites in Nitrogen-Doped Hollow Carbon Nanocubes forReversible Oxygen Reduction and Evolution Xiaopeng Han, Xiaofei Ling, DeshuangYu, Dengyu Xie, Linlin Li, Shengjie Peng,* Cheng Zhong, Naiqin Zhao, YidaDeng,* Wenbin Hu Adv Mater 2019 , 31 , 1905622 Introduction: transition metal monoatomic catalysts have recently emerged as a new frontier material with high activity, high stability and selectivity, providing great potential for a variety of catalytic systems The special electronic structure of the active site, the maximum efficiency of atom utilization and the unsaturated coordination bond are helpful to improve the performance of the catalyst In addition, recent studies have shown that the introduction of a second metal atom can further enhance the activity of the monoatomic catalyst, which indicates that the bimetallic monoatom is expected to further develop However, on the one hand, there is a serious lack of effective strategies to achieve the atomic control of the target reaction sites including binary metals On the other hand, the recognition of bimetallic structure in bimetallic monoatomic catalysts and the interaction mechanism of bimetallic atoms under synergism are still in the initial stage Through the pyrolysis of dopamine coated metal organic framework (MOFs), the team synthesized a new type of catalyst with atom dispersed binary Co Ni sites embedded in nitrogen doped carbon hollow nanocube (denoted as CONI SAS / NC) Thanks to the synergistic effect of abundant single atom active sites and diatomic structures in the porous conductive carbon framework, the obtained CONI SAS / NC composite has excellent orr / oer dual function catalytic ability: the orr half wave potential is 0.76 V, the oer over potential is 340 MV when the current density reaches 10 Ma cm-2, and the voltage difference between the two is 0.81 v , which is lower than the orr / oer voltage difference of many reported non noble metal based electrocatalysts and even noble metal Pt / c-iro2 catalysts Using the CONI SAS / NC as the air positive electrode of liquid and solid zinc air batteries, the battery assembled has the charge / discharge efficiency (59.4%) and cycle life (almost no obvious voltage change after 95 cycles of charge / discharge) better than the noble metal catalysts of the same kind, even better than Pt / C and IrO2 In addition, the calculation based on DFT highlights the structural advantages of bimetallic monoatomic catalysts Compared with simple single metal ni-n and CONI nanoparticles, Co Ni bimetallic catalysts have high activity and synergistic effect of bimetallic-n structure (co-ni-n), which is theoretically feasible in reducing reaction energy barrier and accelerating reaction kinetics It is concluded that the precise control of multiple active sites at the atomic level will provide new opportunities for the rational design of high-performance materials with rich elements based on renewable energy conversion technology Figure 2 Pyrolytic dopamine coating