An ultrafast nickel – iron battery from stronglycoupled inorganic nanoparticle / nanocarbonhybrid materials

摘要

Ultrafast rechargeable batteries made from low-cost and abundant electrode materialsoperating in safe aqueous electrolytes could be attractive for electrochemical energy storage .If both high specific power and energy are achieved, such batteries would be useful for powerquality applications such as to assist propelling electric vehicles that require fast accelerationand intense braking. Here we develop a new type of Ni – Fe battery by employing novel inorganicnanoparticle / graphitic nanocarbon (carbon nanotubes and graphene) hybrid materials aselectrode materials. We successfully increase the charging and discharging rates by nearly1,000-fold over traditional Ni – Fe batteries while attaining high energy density. The ultrafastNi – Fe battery can be charged in -2 min and discharged within 30s to deliver a specific energyof 120 Wh kg~(-1)and a specific power of 15 kW kg~(-1) . These features suggest a new generation ofNi – Fe batteries as novel devices for electrochemical energy storage.