Self-Healing and Anti-CO2 Hydrogels for Flexible Solid-State Zinc-Air Batteries

Siyuan Zhao; Dawei Xia; Minghao Li; Diyi Cheng; Keliang Wang; Ying Shirley Meng; Zheng Chen; Jinhye Bae

doi:10.1021/acsami.1c00012

Self-Healing and Anti-CO₂ Hydrogels for Flexible Solid-State Zinc-Air Batteries

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2021 Mar 17;13(10):12033-12041. doi: 10.1021/acsami.1c00012. Epub 2021 Mar 4.

Authors

Siyuan Zhao^{1

2

3}, Dawei Xia¹, Minghao Li⁴, Diyi Cheng¹, Keliang Wang^{2

3}, Ying Shirley Meng^{1

5}, Zheng Chen^{1

6

5}, Jinhye Bae^{1

6

5

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of NanoEngineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
² School of Mechanical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Automotive Safety and Energy, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
⁴ Materials Science and Engineering Program, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
⁵ Sustainable Power and Energy Center (SPEC), University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
⁶ Program of Chemical Engineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, United States.

PMID: 33657791
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.1c00012

Abstract

Flexible solid-state zinc-air batteries (ZABs) generally suffer from poor electrolyte/electrode contact and mechanical degradation in practical applications. In addition, CO₂ corrosion is also a common issue for ZABs with alkaline electrolyte. Herein, we report a thermoreversible alkaline hydrogel electrolyte that can simultaneously solve the aforementioned problems. Through a simple cooling process, the hydrogel electrolyte transforms from solid state to liquid state that can not only restore the deformed electrolyte layer to its original state but also rebuild intimate contact between electrode and electrolyte. Moreover, the ZAB based on this hydrogel electrolyte exhibits an unprecedented anti-CO₂ property. As a result, such a battery shows almost 2.5 times discharge duration than that of ZAB based on liquid electrolyte.

Keywords: CO2 corrosion; electrode/electrolyte interface; hydrogel electrolyte; self-healing; thermoreversible gel; zinc-air battery.