Quasi-solid-state Zn-air batteries with an atomically dispersed cobalt electrocatalyst and organohydrogel electrolyte

Qichen Wang; Qingguo Feng; Yongpeng Lei; Shuaihao Tang; Liang Xu; Yu Xiong; Guozhao Fang; Yuchao Wang; Peiyao Yang; Jingjing Liu; Wei Liu; Xiang Xiong

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-31383-4

Quasi-solid-state Zn-air batteries with an atomically dispersed cobalt electrocatalyst and organohydrogel electrolyte

Nat Commun. 2022 Jun 27;13(1):3689. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-31383-4.

Authors

Qichen Wang^#^{1

2}, Qingguo Feng^#³, Yongpeng Lei⁴, Shuaihao Tang⁵, Liang Xu⁵, Yu Xiong², Guozhao Fang⁶, Yuchao Wang¹, Peiyao Yang¹, Jingjing Liu², Wei Liu⁷, Xiang Xiong¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha, PR China.
² Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Chemical Power Sources, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, PR China.
³ Key Laboratory of Advanced Technologies of Materials, Ministry of Education, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, Sichuan, PR China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha, PR China. lypkd@163.com.
⁵ Energy Materials Computing Center, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, Nanchang, PR China.
⁶ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, PR China.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, Department of Chemistry, School of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, PR China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Quasi-solid-state Zn-air batteries are usually limited to relatively low-rate ability (<10 mA cm^-2), which is caused in part by sluggish oxygen electrocatalysis and unstable electrochemical interfaces. Here we present a high-rate and robust quasi-solid-state Zn-air battery enabled by atomically dispersed cobalt sites anchored on wrinkled nitrogen doped graphene as the air cathode and a polyacrylamide organohydrogel electrolyte with its hydrogen-bond network modified by the addition of dimethyl sulfoxide. This design enables a cycling current density of 100 mA cm^-2 over 50 h at 25 °C. A low-temperature cycling stability of over 300 h (at 0.5 mA cm^-2) with over 90% capacity retention at -60 °C and a broad temperature adaptability (-60 to 60 °C) are also demonstrated.