Issue 12, 2021

Suppressing cathode dissolution via guest engineering for durable aqueous zinc-ion batteries

Abstract

Rechargeable aqueous zinc ion batteries (AZIBs) have attracted increasing attention because of high ionic conductivity and non-flammable electrolytes. The spontaneous reaction of vanadium dissolution in aqueous electrolytes is a major problem for vanadium-based cathodes, since the water molecules with strong polarity could easily attack the vanadium-based cathodes crystal structure and directly lead to capacity deterioration. Here, a strategy of guest engineering is used to regulate the interlayer binding energy between vanadium oxide layers, thus thermodynamically suppressing vanadium dissolution. First-principles calculations indicate that a large interlayer binding energy of up to 208.1 meV Å−2 between vanadium oxide layers is obtained with NH4+ and H2O co-intercalation, which is more than tenfold that of V2O5. The as-prepared compound (NH4)2V6O16·1.5H2O (NH–V) restrains the vanadium dissolution effectively as expected. The electrolyte with NH–V immersion remains colorless even after 200 days, and the vanadium concentration of this electrolyte is thirty-seven times less than that of V2O5. Moreover, benefiting from this ultra-good chemical stability, the NH–V cathode shows an impressive recharge capacity retention of 98.5% after the open circuit voltage test for three days, which is 23% higher than that of V2O5. These results demonstrate that the guest engineering strategy could be a feasible way to construct robust layer structures, suppress the cathode dissolution, restrain self-discharge and improve the battery storage time. This work can provide new insights to understand the cathode dissolution behavior and it will be helpful to develop cathode materials with robust structures for suppressing cathode dissolution in aqueous batteries and beyond.

Graphical abstract: Suppressing cathode dissolution via guest engineering for durable aqueous zinc-ion batteries

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
11 Jan 2021
Accepted
30 Jan 2021
First published
01 Feb 2021

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2021,9, 7631-7639

Suppressing cathode dissolution via guest engineering for durable aqueous zinc-ion batteries

L. Zhang, J. Hu, B. Zhang, J. Liu, H. Wan, L. Miao and J. Jiang, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2021, 9, 7631 DOI: 10.1039/D1TA00263E

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements