Wearable Antifreezing Fiber-Shaped Zn/PANI Batteries with Suppressed Zn Dendrites and Operation in Sweat Electrolytes

Abstract

Fiber-shaped Zn batteries are promising candidates for wearable electronics owing to their high energy and low cost, but further studies are still required to address the issues related to detrimental Zn dendrite growth and limited low-temperature performances. Here, we report an antifreeze, long-life, and dendrite-free fiber-shaped Zn battery using both nanoporous Zn and polyaniline (PANI) electrodeposited on carbon nanofibers (CFs) as the cathode and anode, respectively. The fiber-shaped Zn anode achieves stable plating/stripping for 1000 mAh cm −2 accumulative capacity with low polarization (30 mV) at a current density of 2 mA cm −2 . The dendrite-free Zn electrodes also enable the stable cycling of the fiber battery with 75.1% capacity retention after 1000 cycles. With an antifreeze agent added in the gel electrolyte, the fiber battery maintains excellent performance at temperatures as low as −30 °C. Lastly, by utilizing the doping/dedoping mechanism of Cl − in the PANI electrode, we achieve, for the first time, a Zn battery using human sweat as a harmless electrolyte. Our work provides a long-life and antifreeze fiber-shaped battery that is highly promising for future wearable energy storage devices.

Research Progresses and Challenges of Flexible Zinc Battery

“…The cathode materials commonly used in flexible zinc ion battery include various transition metal compounds, such as manganese ( Qiu et al, 2017 ; Huang et al, 2019 ; Zu et al, 2019 ; Zhang et al, 2020b ; Zhang et al, 2020c ), cobalt, nickel ( Liu et al, 2016 ; Wan et al, 2018 ) or molybdenum-based oxides/sulfides, Prussian blue analogues and conducting polymers ( Eftekhari et al, 2017 ; Yao et al, 2020 ; Cong et al, 2021 ). ( Table 1 ) Here, we will focus on the last 5 years of research.…”

“…Compared with metal oxides, conductive polymers exhibit higher conductivity due to their long π -electron conjugated system ( Shi et al, 2018 ), and also has the advantages of low cost, easy synthesis, and excellent mechanical properties ( Cong et al, 2021 ), are excellent cathode materials for Zn batteries, and show promising energy storage behavior. Therefore, conductive polymers have attracted wide attention in the field of electric energy storage, especially in wearable electronic devices.…”

A Weavable and Scalable Cotton‐Yarn‐Based Battery Activated by Human Sweat for Textile Electronics

“…In comparison to 2D devices based on paper and textiles, 1D SABs should be more attractive owing to their excellent compatibility with textile electronics and implantable medical devices. [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 ] However, to the best of our knowledge, no studies have been conducted concerning wearable, weavable, and scalable 1D SABs.…”

Preparation of spunlaced viscose/PANI-ZnO/GO fiber membrane and its performance of photocatalytic decolorization

“…Non-woven fabric has been considered to be a good material to combine with PANI due to its cost-effectiveness, high strength, resistance to acid and alkali, better flexibility, and three-dimensional porous structure. 26,27 For example, Fei et al 28 developed a novel method to prepare Bacterial cellulose/PANI nanocomposites via the chemical grafting of PANI onto epoxy-modified bacterial cellulose (BC), the conductivity of BC/PANI only decreased from 1.43 to 1.36 S/cm after refolding 160 times. Therefore, combining non-woven fabric and PANI to prepare the photocatalyst carrier is an interesting concept.…”