TY - JOUR
T1 - Ion-Sieving Carbon Nanoshells for Deeply Rechargeable Zn-Based Aqueous Batteries
AU - Wu, Yutong
AU - Zhang, Yamin
AU - Ma, Yao
AU - Howe, Joshua D.
AU - Yang, Haochen
AU - Chen, Peng
AU - Aluri, Sireesha
AU - Liu, Nian
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
Copyright:
Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2018/12/27
Y1 - 2018/12/27
N2 - As an alternative to lithium-ion batteries, Zn-based aqueous batteries feature nonflammable electrolytes, high theoretical energy density, and abundant materials. However, a deeply rechargeable Zn anode in lean electrolyte configuration is still lacking. Different from the solid-to-solid reaction mechanism in lithium-ion batteries, Zn anodes in alkaline electrolytes go through a solid-solute-solid mechanism (Zn-Zn(OH)4 2−-ZnO), which introduces two problems. First, discharge product ZnO on the surface prevents further reaction of Zn underneath, which leads to low utilization of active material and poor rechargeability. Second, soluble intermediates change Zn anode morphology over cycling. In this work, an ion-sieving carbon nanoshell coated ZnO nanoparticle anode is reported, synthesized in a scalable way with controllable shell thickness, to solve the problems of passivation and dissolution simultaneously. The nanosized ZnO prevents passivation, while microporous carbon shell slows down Zn species dissolution. Under extremely harsh testing conditions (closed cell, lean electrolyte, no ZnO saturation), this Zn anode shows significantly improved performance compared to Zn foil and bare ZnO nanoparticles. The deeply rechargeable Zn anode reported is an important step toward practical high-energy rechargeable aqueous batteries (e.g., Zn-air batteries). And the ion-sieving nanoshell concept demonstrated is potentially beneficial to other electrodes such as sulfur cathode for Li-S batteries.
AB - As an alternative to lithium-ion batteries, Zn-based aqueous batteries feature nonflammable electrolytes, high theoretical energy density, and abundant materials. However, a deeply rechargeable Zn anode in lean electrolyte configuration is still lacking. Different from the solid-to-solid reaction mechanism in lithium-ion batteries, Zn anodes in alkaline electrolytes go through a solid-solute-solid mechanism (Zn-Zn(OH)4 2−-ZnO), which introduces two problems. First, discharge product ZnO on the surface prevents further reaction of Zn underneath, which leads to low utilization of active material and poor rechargeability. Second, soluble intermediates change Zn anode morphology over cycling. In this work, an ion-sieving carbon nanoshell coated ZnO nanoparticle anode is reported, synthesized in a scalable way with controllable shell thickness, to solve the problems of passivation and dissolution simultaneously. The nanosized ZnO prevents passivation, while microporous carbon shell slows down Zn species dissolution. Under extremely harsh testing conditions (closed cell, lean electrolyte, no ZnO saturation), this Zn anode shows significantly improved performance compared to Zn foil and bare ZnO nanoparticles. The deeply rechargeable Zn anode reported is an important step toward practical high-energy rechargeable aqueous batteries (e.g., Zn-air batteries). And the ion-sieving nanoshell concept demonstrated is potentially beneficial to other electrodes such as sulfur cathode for Li-S batteries.
KW - ZnO nanoparticles
KW - anodes
KW - aqueous batteries
KW - core–shell
KW - microporous carbon
KW - zincate
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85055736565&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/aenm.201802470
DO - 10.1002/aenm.201802470
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85055736565
VL - 8
JO - Advanced Energy Materials
JF - Advanced Energy Materials
SN - 1614-6832
IS - 36
M1 - 1802470
ER -