Although current high-energy-density lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have taken over the commercial rechargeable battery market, increasing concerns about limited lithium resources, high cost, and insecurity of organic electrolyte scale-up limit their further development. Rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs), an alternative battery chemistry, have paved the way not only for realizing environmentally benign and safe energy storage devices but also for reducing the manufacturing costs of nextgeneration batteries. This Review underscores recent advances in aqueous ZIBs; these include the design of a highly reversible Zn anode, optimization of the electrolyte, and a wide range of cathode materials and their energy storage mechanisms. We also present recent advanced techniques that aim at overcoming the current issues in aqueous ZIB systems. This Review on the future perspectives and research directions will provide a guide for future aqueous ZIB study.
We report the chemical intercalation of Li+ into the interlayer of V2O5·nH2O with enlarged layer spacing and fast Zn2+ diffusion, resulting in high rate capability and excellent long-term cycling performance.
Aqueous zinc‐ion batteries are largely restricted by the unsatisfactory performance of zinc (Zn) anodes, including their poor stability and irreversibility. In particular, the mechanism behind the electrochemical contrast caused by the surface crystal plane, which is a decisive factor of the electrochemical characteristics of the hostless Zn anode, is still relatively indistinct. Hence, new insight into a novel anode with a surface‐preferred (002) crystal plane is provided. The interfacial reaction and morphology evolution are revealed by theoretical analysis and post‐mortem/operando experimental techniques, indicating that Zn anodes with more exposed (002) basal planes exhibit free dendrites, no by‐products, and weak hydrogen evolution, in sharp contrast to the (100) plane. These features benefit the Zn (002) anode by enabling a long cyclic life of more than 500 h and a high average coulombic efficiency of 97.71% for symmetric batteries, along with delivering long cycling stability and reversibility with life spans of over 2000 cycles for full batteries. This work provides new insights into the design of high‐performance Zn anodes for large‐scale energy storage and can potentially be applied to other metal anodes suffering from instability and irreversibility.
The manganese dissolution leading to sharp capacity decline as well as the sluggish reaction kinetic are still major issues for manganese‐based materials as aqueous zinc‐ion batteries (ZIBs) cathodes. Here, a potassium‐ion‐stabilized and oxygen‐defect K0.8Mn8O16 is reported as a high‐energy‐density and durable cathode for neutral aqueous ZIBs. A new insight into suppressing manganese dissolution via incorporation of K+ ions to intrinsically stabilize the Mn‐based cathodes is provided. A comprehensive study suggests that oxygen defects improve electrical conductivity and open the MnO6 polyhedron walls for ion diffusion, which plays a critical role in the fast reaction kinetics and capacity improvement of K0.8Mn8O16. In addition, direct evidence for the mechanistic details of simultaneous insertion and conversion reaction based on H+‐storage mechanism is demonstrated. As expected, a significant energy output of 398 W h kg−1 (based on the mass of cathode) and an impressive durability over 1000 cycles with no obvious capacity fading are obtained. Such a high‐energy Zn‐K0.8Mn8O16 battery, as well as the basic understanding of manganese dissolution and oxygen defects may open new opportunities toward high‐performance aqueous ZIBs.
The development of low-cost and high-safety zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) has been extensively discussed and reviewed in recent years, but the work on comprehensive discussion and perspective in developing zinc-ion electrolytes...
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