Enhancing the Kinetics of Zinc Ion Deposition by Catalytic Ion in Polymer Electrolytes for Advanced Zn–MnO_2 Batteries

摘要

The practicality of zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) is compromise seriously becauseof the mutual restrictions of hydrogen evolution, by-product formation andzincdendrite growth. Herein, anhydrous gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs)with catalytic ions and in situdomain-constrained zinc ions are designed.Innovatively, copper ions are confined in the network structure of the gel foraccelerating the deposition and migration kinetics of zinc ions. Not only doesthis anhydrous GPEs exhibit strong mechanicaland thermal properties, butit also presents a high ionic conductivity (24.32 mS cm~(?1)) and a high zinc iontransference number (0.42). Consequently, the anhydrous GPEs is capable ofstable cycling of symmetrical Zn cells at 1 mA cm~(?2) with acumulative capacityof 1000 mAh cm~(?2) and maintaines a high discharge specific capacity of124.6 mAh g~(?1) after 1000 long-term cycles of the Zn-MnO_2 battery (ZMB) at1 C. The synergistic catalytic strategy of composite gel opens new opportunitiesfor a promising pathway to facilitate the large-scale application of ZIBswith hydrogel electrolytes.