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Recently, the interest in developing highly safe rechargeable energy storage systems that are environmentally friendly and integrate that a low cost into the electric grid with electric vehicles now included in the agenda of global energy policies, has grown immensely. As a promising technology, rechargeable zinc-air batteries have received a lot of attention in the last few years. In this research work we focus on the improving the performance of the gasdiffusion electrode (GDE) for secondary Zn-air batteries. A new generation of GDE has been developed and tested in a half-cell configuration. The gas-diffusion layer was developed by heat treated at up to 300°C carbon black. A mixture of Ag and Co3O4 has been used for the bi-functional catalyst in the active layer (AL). Preliminary studies of the gas-diffusion layer (GDL) with different carbon blacks and different ratios between the PTFE and carbon blacks showed that the most stable GDL is produced by Vulcan XC-72 carbon black teflonized with 60 % PTFE. The steady state polarization curves and the charge/discharge tests revealed a superior electrochemical performance of the heat treated carbon material employed in the GDL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]