Nitrogen-Doped Perovskite as a Bifunctional Cathode Catalyst for Rechargeable Lithium–Oxygen Batteries

In this work, nitrogen-doped LaNiO3 perovskite was prepared and studied, for the first time, as a bifunctional electrocatalyst for oxygen cathode in a rechargeable lithium–oxygen battery. N doping was found to significantly increase the Ni3+ contents and oxygen vacancies on the bulk surface of the perovskite, which helped to promote the oxygen reduction reaction and oxygen evolution reaction of the cathode and, therefore, enabled reversible Li2O2 formation and decomposition on the cathode surface. As a result, the oxygen cathodes loaded with N-doped LaNiO3 catalyst showed an improved electrochemical performance in terms of discharge capacity and cycling stability to promise practical Li–O2 batteries.