Abstract Seawater batteries (SWBs) are a type of sodium-air batteries that use abundant seawater as the source of the catholyte. A cathode current collector in traditional SWBs is composed of titanium (Ti) and carbon-based current collectors. The high contact resistance between Ti and carbon-based current collectors as well as the slow kinetics of oxygen evolution and reduction reactions increase the overpotential, resulting in side reactions such as carbon corrosion.