Novel Ni–Fe‐Layered Double Hydroxide Microspheres with Reduced Graphene Oxide for Rechargeable Aluminum Batteries

Abstract

Rechargeable aluminum batteries (RABs) have been intensively studied recently in virtue of high volumetric energy density and cheapness. However, limited options for suitable cathode materials is the major obstacle to their large‐scale application. Herein, nickel‐iron layered double hydroxide (NiFe–LDH) microspheres with reduced graphene oxide (rGO) are reported as cathode for RABs. It is demonstrated that NiFe–LDH can provide large interlayer spacing for aluminum ions to interact, and the introduction of rGO endows NiFe–LDH with excellent structure stability, electronic conduction, and electrochemical reaction kinetics. The aluminum battery with a NiFe–LDH/rGO cathode delivers a high reversible capacity of 131 mA h g−1 at 1 A g−1 with nearly 100% coulombic efficiency after 100 cycles. The characterization results reveal that the reversible Al3+ insertion/extraction along with the multielectron redox reactions occurs in the NiFe–LDH/rGO during the cycling process. The aforementioned strategies shed new light on the selection of compatible cathodes for RABs.

High‐Performance Rechargeable Aluminum‐Ion Batteries Enabled by Composite FeF3 @ Expanded Graphite Cathode and Carbon Nanotube‐Modified Separator

“…More recently, extensive efforts have been made to develop new cathode materials to promote the specific/volumetric capacity of AIBs, including transition metal oxides, [20][21][22][23][24] sulfides, [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] selenides, [39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47] and others. [48][49][50] For example, Zhang et al [47] reported SnSe nanoparticles as cathode materials with a high initial discharge capacity of 582 mAh g −1 at a current density of 300 mA g −1 and this cathode material provided 107 mAh g −1 reversible capacity after 100 cycles and had a discharge voltage of 1.6 V (vs Al/AlCl 4 − ). The reaction mechanism of SnSe was reported as the process of intercalation/deintercalation of AlCl 4 − ions combined with redox reactions of both Sn and Se elements.…”