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Nano Research 2022, 15(9): 8039-8047 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4419-y
Research Article | Issue | Published: 14 June 2022

Highly stable aqueous zinc-ion batteries enabled by suppressing the dendrite and by-product formation in multifunctional Al3+ electrolyte additive

Show Author's Information Xianlin Zhou1,  Kaixuan Ma1,  Qianyu Zhang2( ),  Gongzheng Yang1( ),  Chengxin Wang1
State key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen (Zhongshan) University, Guangzhou 510275, China
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064, China
Keywords:
hybrid electrolyte, long cycle life, electrolyte additive, aqueous Zn-ion batteries, vanadium-based cathode
Topics:
Secondary batteries
Cite this article:
Zhou X, Ma K, Zhang Q, et al. Highly stable aqueous zinc-ion batteries enabled by suppressing the dendrite and by-product formation in multifunctional Al3+ electrolyte additive. Nano Research, 2022, 15(9): 8039-8047. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4419-y
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) have gained extensive attention owing to the high safety, low cost, and high power/energy densities. But unfortunately the ZIBs universally suffer from the highly damaging series of side reactions, majorly including the insulating products formation, dendritic growth of zinc, and hydrogen evolution. To date there are few reports on the effective strategy that can solve the problems at the same time. Here we propose a novel hybrid electrolyte with Al3+ as additive to construct an aqueous ZIB composed of metallic zinc anode and K0.51V2O5 (KVO) nanoplate cathode. The highly reversible multistep K+/Zn2+-ions co-insertion/extraction in the lamellar structure with large interlayer spacing is clearly evidenced by systematical characterizations. In the presence of Al3+, the insulating basic zinc salts on the cathode surface have been reduced greatly, and the electrochemical potential window has been significantly expanded from 3 to 4.35 V. More interestingly, the Al3+ acts as a dopant embedded into the lattice that strengthens the crystal structure. Benefits from the suppressed zinc dendrite growth, the symmetrical Zn/Zn battery exhibited a satisfactory cycling life over 1,500 h at a high rate of 3 mA·cm–2 in the hybrid electrolyte. As a result, the Zn/KVO batteries delivered a high specific capacity of 210 mAh·g–1 and retained high capacity retention of 91% after 1,600 h at a low current of 100 mA·g–1.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Highly stable aqueous zinc-ion batteries enabled by suppressing the dendrite and by-product formation in multifunctional Al3+ electrolyte additive

Show Author's information Xianlin Zhou1, Kaixuan Ma1, Qianyu Zhang2( ), Gongzheng Yang1( ), Chengxin Wang1
State key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen (Zhongshan) University, Guangzhou 510275, China
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064, China

Abstract

Rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) have gained extensive attention owing to the high safety, low cost, and high power/energy densities. But unfortunately the ZIBs universally suffer from the highly damaging series of side reactions, majorly including the insulating products formation, dendritic growth of zinc, and hydrogen evolution. To date there are few reports on the effective strategy that can solve the problems at the same time. Here we propose a novel hybrid electrolyte with Al3+ as additive to construct an aqueous ZIB composed of metallic zinc anode and K0.51V2O5 (KVO) nanoplate cathode. The highly reversible multistep K+/Zn2+-ions co-insertion/extraction in the lamellar structure with large interlayer spacing is clearly evidenced by systematical characterizations. In the presence of Al3+, the insulating basic zinc salts on the cathode surface have been reduced greatly, and the electrochemical potential window has been significantly expanded from 3 to 4.35 V. More interestingly, the Al3+ acts as a dopant embedded into the lattice that strengthens the crystal structure. Benefits from the suppressed zinc dendrite growth, the symmetrical Zn/Zn battery exhibited a satisfactory cycling life over 1,500 h at a high rate of 3 mA·cm–2 in the hybrid electrolyte. As a result, the Zn/KVO batteries delivered a high specific capacity of 210 mAh·g–1 and retained high capacity retention of 91% after 1,600 h at a low current of 100 mA·g–1.

Keywords: hybrid electrolyte, long cycle life, electrolyte additive, aqueous Zn-ion batteries, vanadium-based cathode

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 20 January 2022
Revised: 20 March 2022
Accepted: 13 April 2022
Published: 14 June 2022
Issue date: September 2022

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2022

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 91963210, U1801255, and 51872340) and Guangdong Provincial Natural Science Foundation, China (No. 2021A1515010143).

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