Development of long lifespan high-energy aqueous organic||iodine rechargeable batteries

Zishuai Zhang; Yilong Zhu; Miao Yu; Yan Jiao; Yan Huang

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-34303-8

Development of long lifespan high-energy aqueous organic||iodine rechargeable batteries

Nat Commun. 2022 Oct 30;13(1):6489. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-34303-8.

Authors

Zishuai Zhang^{1

2

3}, Yilong Zhu⁴, Miao Yu⁵, Yan Jiao⁶, Yan Huang^{7

8

9}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, China.
² Sauvage Laboratory for Smart Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China.
³ Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Flexible Printed Electronics Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China.
⁴ School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, 5005, Australia.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, China. miaoyu_che@hit.edu.cn.
⁶ School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, 5005, Australia. yan.jiao@adelaide.edu.au.
⁷ Sauvage Laboratory for Smart Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China. yanhuanglib@hit.edu.cn.
⁸ Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Flexible Printed Electronics Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China. yanhuanglib@hit.edu.cn.
⁹ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Welding and Joining, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, China. yanhuanglib@hit.edu.cn.

Abstract

Rechargeable aqueous metal||I₂ electrochemical energy storage systems are a cost-effective alternative to conventional transition-metal-based batteries for grid energy storage. However, the growth of unfavorable metallic deposition and the irreversible formation of electrochemically inactive by-products at the negative electrode during cycling hinder their development. To circumvent these drawbacks, herein we propose 3,4,9,10-perylenetetracarboxylic diimide (PTCDI) as negative electrode active material and a saturated mixed KCl/I₂ aqueous electrolyte solution. The use of these components allows for exploiting two sequential reversible electrochemical reactions in a single cell. Indeed, when they are tested in combination with an active carbon-enveloped I₂ electrode in a glass cell configuration, we report an initial specific discharge capacity of 900 mAh g^-1 (electrode mass of iodine only) and an average cell discharge voltage of 1.25 V at 40 A g^-1 and 25[Formula: see text]1 °C. Finally, we also report the assembly and testing of a PTCDI|KCl-I₂|carbon paper multilayer pouch cell prototype with a discharge capacity retention of about 70% after 900 cycles at 80 mA and 25[Formula: see text]1 °C.