Electrostatic self-assembly synthesis of LSM@CZ composite material as electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction in aluminum-air batteries

La1-xSrxMnO3 (LSM) material has been proposed as one of the best oxygen reduction reaction catalysts (ORRCs) to substitute the noble metals. It is well known that improving oxygen adsorption capacity is beneficial to the catalytic activity of LSM perovskites. Herein, the La0.7Sr0.3MnO3@Ce0.75Zr0.25O2 (LSM@CZ) composite material has been synthetized by a facile electrostatic self-assembly method with two-step strategy. The CZ nano-particles are well distributed on the surface of LSM material. The LSM-4CZ composite catalyst exhibits good catalytic activity in alkaline solution. The onset potential, half-wave potential and electron transfer number of LSM-4CZ composite catalyst correspond to 0.898 V, 0.695 V and 4, respectively. The LSM-4CZ composite catalyst has a good durability with the current retention of 93.9% after 80000 s, exhibiting a much better stability than that of Pt/C catalyst whose retention is 83.5%. By using LSM-CZ as the ORRC, the maximum power density of the aluminum-air battery can reach 242.9 mW cm-2, which is about 40% higher than that of battery using LSM (177.3 mW cm-2). It indicates that LSM@CZ composite material is a promising cathodic electrocatalyst for metal-air batteries.