Boosted Charge Transfer in Twinborn α-(Mn2O3-MnO2) Heterostructures: Toward High-Rate and Ultralong-Life Zinc-Ion Batteries

Jun Long; Fuhua Yang; Jing Cuan; Jingxing Wu; Zhanhong Yang; Hao Jiang; Rui Song; Wenlong Song; Jianfeng Mao; Zaiping Guo

doi:10.1021/acsami.0c05812

Boosted Charge Transfer in Twinborn α-(Mn₂O₃-MnO₂) Heterostructures: Toward High-Rate and Ultralong-Life Zinc-Ion Batteries

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2020 Jul 22;12(29):32526-32535. doi: 10.1021/acsami.0c05812. Epub 2020 Jul 8.

Authors

Jun Long^{1

2}, Fuhua Yang², Jing Cuan², Jingxing Wu², Zhanhong Yang¹, Hao Jiang³, Rui Song⁴, Wenlong Song⁴, Jianfeng Mao², Zaiping Guo²

Affiliations

¹ Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Chemical Power Sources, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, P. R. China.
² Institute for Superconducting & Electronic Materials, Australian Institute for Innovative Materials (AIIM), School of Mechanical, Materials, Mechatronics and Biomedical Engineering, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales 2522, Australia.
³ Center of Super-Diamond and Advanced Films (COSDAF) & Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong 999077, China.
⁴ Tianneng Battery Group Company Limited, Huzhou, Zhejiang 313100, China.

PMID: 32589013
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.0c05812

Abstract

Aqueous ZIBs are one of the most promising next-generation rechargeable batteries because of the high capacity, high hydrogen evolution overpotential, and chemically stable reversible plating/stripping of the zinc electrode in the mild aqueous electrolyte. However, there are limited cathode materials that can store Zn²⁺ reversibly with superior cycling and rate capability. Herein, hierarchically porous nanorods composed of twinborn α-(Mn₂O₃-MnO₂) heterostructures are proposed as a robust cathode for Zn storage. Thanks to the hierarchically porous nanorod morphology and the abundant interface of the heterostructures involving a built-in electric field, the as-obtained twinborn α-(Mn₂O₃-MnO₂) electrode delivers a high capacity of 170 mA h g^-1 for 2000 cycles at 500 mA g^-1 and shows an excellent rate capability of up to 1.5 A g^-1 with a capacity of 124 mA h g^-1. The inspiring results achieved exhibit the enormous potential of the high-performance heterostructure cathode for fast and stable ZIBs.

Keywords: Zn2+ intercalation; charge transfer; cyclic performance; heterostructures; stationary energy storage; zinc-ion batteries.