Flexible and conductive scaffold-stabilized zinc metal anodes for ultralong-life zinc-ion batteries and zinc-ion hybrid capacitors

By Liubing Dong, Wu Yang, Wang Yang, H. Tian, Yongfeng Huang, Xianli Wang, Chengjun Xu, Cheng‐yin Wang, Feiyu Kang, Guoxiu Wang. 2020

234 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract The merits of zinc metal anodes such as high chemical stability, low cost and ultrahigh volumetric capacity endow Zn based batteries/hybrid capacitors with great potential applications for electronic products. However, unstable stripping/plating of zinc anodes tends to cause the formation of protuberances/dendrites and side reactions such as water decomposition on anode surfaces, eventually leading to the failure of Zn based electrochemical energy storage devices. Herein, we report the fabrication of free-standing, highly flexible and conductive carbon nanotube (CNT)/paper scaffolds to stabilize zinc metal anodes. The free-standing CNT scaffolds only need to be placed between zinc anodes and separators when assembling zinc anode-based batteries/hybrid capacitors. On the surface of the zinc electrode, the scaffolds’ porous skeleton mechanically regulates Zn2+ deposition sites and their conductive CNT networks maintain a stable electric field during Zn stripping/plating processes, thus retarding the formation of protuberances/dendrites and the occurrence of side reactions. The scaffold-stabilized zinc anodes displayed small polarization voltages, a long cycling life over 1800 h and superior capability for fast charging-discharging. In addition, benefiting from the high electrochemical stability and reversibility of the scaffold-stabilized zinc anodes, zinc-ion batteries/hybrid capacitors with ultralong cycle lives were successfully constructed. This work provides a scalable approach to stabilize zinc metal anodes for long-life zinc-ion batteries and zinc-ion hybrid capacitors.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9e626050025fb96256223bd14a76e14219381e7e