Lithium–oxygen (Li–O₂) batteries have been envisaged and pursued as the long-term successor to Li-ion batteries, due to the highest theoretical energy density among all known battery chemistries. However, their practical application is hindered by low energy efficiency, sluggish kinetics, and a reliance on catalysts for the oxygen reduction and evolution reactions (ORR/OER). In a superoxide battery, oxygen is also used as the cathodic active medium but is reduced only to superoxide (O₂^•–), the anion formed by adding an electron to a diatomic oxygen molecule. Therefore, O₂/O₂^•– is a unique single-electron ORR/OER process. Since the introduction of K–O₂ batteries by our group in 2013, superoxide batteries based on potassium superoxide (KO₂) have attracted increasing interest as promising energy storage devices due to their significantly lower overpotentials and costs.

中文翻译：

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过氧化钾：金属空气电池的独特替代品

锂-氧（Li-O ₂）电池由于所有已知电池化学中最高的理论能量密度，已经被设想并作为锂离子电池的长期替代品。然而，它们的实际应用受到低能量效率，缓慢的动力学以及对用于氧还原和放出反应（ORR / OER）的催化剂的依赖而受到阻碍。在超氧化物电池中，氧气也用作阴极活性介质，但仅还原为超氧化物（O ₂ ^•–），这是通过向双原子氧分子中添加电子而形成的阴离子。因此，O ₂ / O ₂ ^•–是唯一的单电子ORR / OER工艺。自从引入K–O ₂根据我们集团在2013年开发的电池，基于过氧化钾（KO ₂）的超氧化物电池作为有前途的储能设备已受到越来越多的关注，因为它们的超电势和成本明显降低。