Metallic zinc as a rechargeable anode material for aqueous batteries has gained tremendous attention. Zn-air batteries, which operate in alkaline electrolytes, are promising with the highest theoretical volumetric energy density. However, rechargeable zinc anodes develop slowly in alkaline electrolytes due to passivation, dissolution, and hydrogen evolution issues. In this study, we report the design of a submicron zinc anode sealed with an ion-sieving coating that suppresses hydrogen evolution reaction. The design is demonstrated with ZnO nanorods coated by TiO 2 , which overcomes passivation, dissolution, and hydrogen evolution issues simultaneously. It achieves superior reversible deep cycling performance with a high discharge capacity of 616 mAh/g and Coulombic efficiency of 93.5% when cycled with 100% depth of discharge at lean electrolyte. It can also deeply cycle ∼350 times in a beaker cell. The design principle of this work may potentially be applied to other battery electrode materials.
A novel and efficient method for the electroless silver plating polyimide fabric was developed with electromagnetic shielding properties. Firstly, polyaniline (PANi) was in situ polymerized with ammonium persulfate used as oxidizing agent. Secondly, Ag+ was in situ reduced to Ag0 by PANi, and the electroless silver plating was initiated by Ag0 used as active center. Fourier transform infrared, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, contact angle analysis and energy dispersive spectroscopy were used to characterize the composite fabric. It could be observed that silver layer-coated polyimide fabric was compact and uniform with surface resistance about 0.02 Ω/sq. The thermal stability was evaluated by thermogravimetric analysis. The as-prepared fabric had excellent anti-corrosion, tensile strength and fastness. The shielding effectiveness of this fabric could reach 54–90 dB, which implied it was a good candidate as electromagnetic shielding materials in many fields.
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