A Patternable and In Situ Formed Polymeric Zinc Blanket for a Reversible Zinc Anode in a Skin‐Mountable Microbattery

Abstract

Advances in the miniaturization of electronic devices have allowed the rapid development of wearable technologies and envisioned seamless and user-friendly smart systems with Owing to their high safety and reversibility, aqueous microbatteries using zinc anodes and an acid electrolyte have emerged as promising candidates for wearable electronics. However, a critical limitation that prevents implementing zinc chemistry at the microscale lies in its spontaneous corrosion in an acidic electrolyte that causes a capacity loss of 40% after a ten-hour rest. Widespread anti-corrosion techniques, such as polymer coating, often retard the kinetics of zinc plating/stripping and lack spatial control at the microscale. Here, a polyimide coating that resolves this dilemma is reported. The coating prevents corrosion and hence reduces the capacity loss of a standby microbattery to 10%. The coordination of carbonyl oxygen in the polyimide with zinc ions builds up over cycling, creating a zinc blanket that minimizes the concentration gradient through the electrode/electrolyte interface and thus allows for fast kinetics and low plating/stripping overpotential. The polyimide's patternable feature energizes microbatteries in both aqueous and hydrogel electrolytes, delivering a supercapacitor-level rate performance and 400 stable cycles in the hydrogel electrolyte. Moreover, the microbattery is able to be attached to human skin and offers strong resistance to deformations, splashing, and external shock. The skin-mountable microbattery demonstrates an excellent combination of anti-corrosion, reversibility, and durability in wearables. The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under

Heterometallic Seed‐Mediated Zinc Deposition on Inkjet Printed Silver Nanoparticles Toward Foldable and Heat‐Resistant Zinc Batteries

“…[ 35,45 ] , and 1 mAh cm −2 for Ref. [ 46,47 ] . f) The optimized configurations and g) calculated binding energies of zinc absorbed on carbon, Ag(100), and AgZn 3 (001).…”

“…Coulombic efficiency is an important parameter to evaluate the cycle life of Zn metal anode, which is defined as the ratio of the amount of stripped Zn versus that of the plated Zn in each cycle. [ 47 ] In a half‐cell configuration, Zn is first plated onto the AgNPs@CC electrode and then stripped away up to 0.5 V for each cycle. The CE of the AgNPs@CC electrode was evaluated under various current densities and areal capacities.…”

Current Advances on Zn Anodes for Aqueous Zinc‐Ion Batteries

“…The PVB layer can effectively block water from the Zn surface and guide the uniform Zn plating/stripping due to good adhesion, hydrophilicity, ionic conductivity and mechanical strength. A patternable polyimide was prepared via spin coating and marking [63] . It reveals the coordination between carbonyl oxygen atoms with Zn 2+ , which can be stronger when polyamide structure collapse over cycling.…”

A Facile Chemical Method Enabling Uniform Zn Deposition for Improved Aqueous Zn-Ion Batteries

“…For example, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have seen tremendous success as one of the most common types of power source in the portable electronics market, due to their high energy density [5][6][7]. However, the fire risk of the flammable organic electrolyte, high cost, as well as limited reserves of lithium, severely restrict the largescale implementation of LIBs in automotive and stationary storage applications [8,9]. In this regard, developing alternative battery technology is important and essential.…”