The non-aqueous lithium-oxygen battery has a remarkably high
energy density up to 11.1Wh g1 (based on lithium anode),
which is comparable to that of gasoline (13Wh g1
). Because of
its exceptional energy potentiality, non-aqueous lithium-oxygen
batteries have been regarded as one of the most promising power
sources for portable devices and electric vehicles [1]. However, to
make this technology commercially viable, many critical issues
need to be addressed, including a low energy efficiency, short
cycling life and poor rate capability, which are thought to be mainly
induced by the high overpotentials during discharge-charge
cycling [1–3]. In conventional non-aqueous lithium-oxygen
batteries, carbon materials were widely applied as cathode
materials due to their large specific surface area, good oxygen
reduction activities, appropriated pore size and volume as well as
economic merits [3–11]. However, carbon materials suffer from
OER large polarization during charge process. Thus, tremendous
efforts have been devoted to reducing the large overpotentials
(especially for the charging process, >1V) by developing highly
effective cathode [12]. One effective approach is to design catalysts
with high electrocatalytic activities for oxygen reduction reaction
(ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER).