Rechargeable Metal-Hydrogen Peroxide Battery, A Solution to Improve the Metal-Air Battery Performance

Rechargeable metal-air batteries are set to play an important role in electrifying the transportation sector and transitioning to a sustainable energy society with zero carbon footprint. However, their performance is vastly hampered by the sluggish kinetics of oxygen redox reactions at the air electrode. Herein, a rechargeable metal-hydrogen peroxide battery is introduced that is air-free and uses onsite generated and reduced hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) as an oxygen source for charging and discharging. Replacing oxygen redox reactions with H2O2 redox reactions results in a much faster kinetics and a significant improvement in the overall battery performance. Using computationally driven material design with a set of thermodynamic rules, highly stable, active, and selective bifunctional catalyst materials for H2O2 generation and reduction are proposed. This technology has the potential to overcome the long-standing issues with metal-air batteries paving the path for advancing the next-generation rechargeable battery technology based on H2O2 redox chemistry.