Investigation on the Effect of Different Mild Acidic Electrolyte on ZIBs Electrode/Electrolyte Interface and the Performance Improvements With the Optimized Cathode

Yang Gui; Yang Lei; Bao An Fan

doi:10.3389/fchem.2020.00827

Investigation on the Effect of Different Mild Acidic Electrolyte on ZIBs Electrode/Electrolyte Interface and the Performance Improvements With the Optimized Cathode

Front Chem. 2020 Oct 23:8:827. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2020.00827. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Yang Gui¹, Yang Lei¹, Bao An Fan¹

Affiliation

¹ Key Laboratory of Hubei Province for Coal Conversion and New Carbon Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.

Abstract

Zinc ion batteries (ZIBs), as promising alternatives of lithium ion batteries (LIBs), have aroused revived interest in the energy storage field recently. To obtain good performance, the choice of electrolyte plays a vital role. Therefore, in this work, three kinds of aqueous electrolyte have been assessed for interfacial effect and ZIB performance. Through the comparison, ZnSO₄ electrolyte showed advantages on ionic conductivity over both Zn(NO₃)₂ and Zn(CH₃COO)₂ solution, Zn(CH₃COO)₂ exhibited considerable Zn stripping/plating kinetics with ZnSO₄, and there was no characteristic peak pair of Zn dissolution/deposition found in Zn(NO₃)₂. Additionally, a lower charge transfer resistance was proved when the cell with 1 M ZnSO₄ solution. Besides, to further study on cathodic graphite paper, activation and optimization has been conducted, and cells with optimized graphite paper showed an outstanding enhancement.

Keywords: ZIB performance; Zn stripping/plating kinetics; aqueous electrolye; electrochemical assessment; interfacial effect.