Sustainable Fabrication of Graphene Oxide Cathodes from Graphite of Failed Commercial Li‐Ion Batteries for High‐Performance Aqueous Zn‐Ion Batteries

Abstract

The need for revamping spent graphite (SG) from battery waste of commercial lithium‐ion batteries and employing it as a source for the synthesis of graphene oxide (GO) is focused. Thus, this work emphasizes the study of GO sheets, synthesized via modified Hummer's method from spent graphite (SG‐GO) as cathodes for an aqueous zinc ion battery (AZIB) system, for the first time in literature. For comparison, graphene oxide is also synthesized using commercial graphite powder, its structural and morphological properties are analyzed with SG‐GO. The coin cell AZIB device is fabricated for both the GOs and the electrochemical performances revealed that SG‐GO portrayed an enhanced charge capacity of 270 mAh g−1 at 0.1 A g−1 in 3 m ZnSO4 in comparison to GO which delivered ≈198 mAh g−1 at the same current density of 0.1 A g−1. The long‐run cycling analysis of SG‐GO elucidated the capacity retention of 77.3% at 1 A g−1 even after 1000 cycles. Moreover, the performance of SG‐GO is inspected in different electrolyte systems and the suitable electrolyte underwent concentration variation studies to figure out the capability of the system in storing Zn2+ ions which is found to be more in 3 M ZnSO4 electrolyte.