Conductive copper glue constructs a reversible and stable zinc metal anode interface for advanced aqueous zinc ion battery

Youcun Bai; Heng Zhang; Muhammad Usman Tahir; Bin Xiang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2021.09.142

Conductive copper glue constructs a reversible and stable zinc metal anode interface for advanced aqueous zinc ion battery

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2022 Feb 15;608(Pt 1):22-29. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.09.142. Epub 2021 Sep 25.

Authors

Youcun Bai¹, Heng Zhang², Muhammad Usman Tahir³, Bin Xiang⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 401331, China.
² Institute for Clean Energy & Advanced Materials, Faculty of Materials and Energy, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Faisalabad, Pakistan.
⁴ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 401331, China. Electronic address: xiangbin@cqu.edu.cn.

PMID: 34626969
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.09.142

Abstract

Aqueous zinc (Zn) ion battery (AZIB) has become one of the research hotspot in the field of energy storage due to its low cost, green environmental protection, high theoretical capacity, and high safety. However, the unrestrained growth of the dendrites leads to the occurrence of side reactions, such as corrosion of the electrodes and generation of hydrogen, which reduces the coulombic efficiency and performance of the battery. Herein, a simple method reports pasting a conductive copper glue (CCG) coating on the surface of Zn anode to improve the serious dendrite growth. The coating has strong intermolecular interaction and high conductivity, which not only avoids the occurrence of side reactions but also facilitates the uniform deposition of Zn²⁺ ions, preventing dendrite formation. The symmetrical battery assembled with Zn anode modified by CCG coating delivers longer cycle life (167 h) and lower voltage hysteresis (≈26 mV), which is much better than that of bare Zn symmetrical battery (30 h, ≈67 mV). Furthermore, the full battery assembly with modified Zn anode and stainless steel (SS) supported V₂O₅ nanospheres (VO-SS) cathode exhibit high capacity and long cycle life (113.5 mAh g^-1 after 4000 cycles at 4.8 A g^-1).

Keywords: Aqueous zinc ion battery; Conductive copper glue; Deposition; V(2)O(5); Zinc dendrites.