have also greatly aroused the positive exploration of alternative LIB technologies in recent years. [44] In contrast to the flammable organic electrolyte in LIBs, the aqueous one exhibits lower cost, higher safety, and especially the superior ionic conductivity, which is generally two orders of magnitude higher than that of the organic system. [9,10] All those unparalleled advantages would make the aqueous battery technologies to be the promising candidates in the future. [11] Rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs), which is mainly composed of zinc metal anode, zinc salt-based aqueous electrolyte, and Zn 2+ host cathode, hold the great promise for energy storage applications in very recent years. [12,13] Compared with nonaqueous alkali-ion batteries, the use of cheap and high ambient stable zinc metal anode and inexpensive aqueous electrolyte with superior ionic conductivity (Figure 1a) would make such type of battery to be one of the most promising commercial candidates in the future market. [14-17] To date, extensive studies have been reported for AZIBs, and relating publications have dramatically increased especially in these two years, as shown in Figure 1b. However, the insufficient energy density seems to become the bottleneck that hinder their practical applications at current status. [4,5,18] Such issue could be ascribed to the narrow operating voltage of aqueous electrolyte, insufficient electrochemical performance of cathode materials, and Zn anode. [13,19,20] Besides, the influence of other components such as separator and collector also should be considered to some extent. [20,21] Among them, the studies of widening operating voltage of electrolyte and the optimization of other components only received less attention, which still remain at the early stage. [22,23] On the contrary, more attentions were paid to the electrochemical performance tuning of electrode materials. [24-26] Besides, considering the fixed operating voltage of Zn metal anode, the modification of cathode materials seems to provide more possibilities to effectively improve the energy density of AZIBs, owing to their rich material systems. [20,26,27] Under these considerations, the rational design of advanced cathodes is expected to be a preferential task to develop. Up to now, many types of materials have been exploited as cathode candidates and applied for AZIBs, however, those Rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) have attracted extensive attention and are considered to be promising energy storage devices, owing to their low cost, eco-friendliness, and high security. However, insufficient energy density has become the bottleneck for practical applications, which is greatly influenced by their cathodes and makes the exploration of high-performance cathodes still a great challenge. This review underscores the recent advances in the rational design of advanced cathodes for AZIBs. The review starts with a brief summary and evaluation of cathode material systems, as well as the introduction of proposed storage mechani...

In this work, we demonstrated a novel non-flammable composite polymer electrolyte, which can be applied for high-performance solid-state lithium battery.

Sluggish transport kinetics and unstable electrode-electrolyte interface are the main obstacles that greatly impair the electrochemical performance of solid-state Zn metal batteries. Herein, the concept of multifunctional MXene bonded transport network-embedded poly(vinylidene fluoride co-hexafluoropropylene)/Zn(OTf ) 2 solid polymer electrolyte (PH/MXene SPE) is proposed as "all-in-one" strategy for designing robust SPE. In order to uncover the mechanism of such rational designed SPE on regulating the ion transport, as well as the interphase chemistry and Zn deposition, comprehensive research including density functional theory calculation, simulation, and multiple characterization techniques are carried out. As the results indicate, the formation of hydrogen bond network between the MXene nanofiller and PH polymer benefits fast and homogeneous ion transport. Then, the in situ formation of stable organic/inorganic hybrid interphase is capable to ensure the efficient interfacial transport kinetics and uniform Zn deposition. When such PH/ MXene SPE is applied, ultrastable Zn plating/stripping behavior with small polarization voltage can be realized. In addi, solid-state Zn/VO 2 batteries with significantly improved rate performance and cyclic stability also can be demonstrated. The unique strategy proposed in this study offer a new insight into SPE design and the development of high-performance solid-state Zn metal batteries.

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Lead acid batteries have been widely used in different fields, so abundant waste lead acid battery was generated. Waste lead acid battery is regarded as a toxic material due to the metallic lead and the lead paste compounds. Once lead and its compounds enter the human body and the environment, which will cause serious threats. At present, the waste lead acid batteries are mainly recovered in the form of metal lead, which has many problems. Thus, this paper put forward a novel technology to recycle waste lead acid battery. Vacuum thermal decomposition was employed to treat recycled lead carbonate from waste lead acid battery. Thermodynamics analysis and experiments were finished from the reaction free energy of lead carbonate decomposition and vacuum furnace. The results showed that the recycled lead carbonate began to be decomposed when the temperature reached 250°C. Above 340°C, most of intermediate PbCO 3 •2PbO were converted to red α-PbO and then transformed to yellow β-PbO when the temperature was raised further to 460°C. Furthermore, the study provided the fundamental data for the preparation of α-PbO and β-PbO in vacuum, which also demonstrated a new way for the reuse of spent lead acid battery resource and an outlook of sustainable production.

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