A zinc-conducting chalcogenide electrolyte

Jian Zhi; Siwei Zhao; Min Zhou; Ruiqi Wang; Fuqiang Huang

doi:10.1126/sciadv.ade2217

A zinc-conducting chalcogenide electrolyte

Sci Adv. 2023 Jan 27;9(4):eade2217. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.ade2217. Epub 2023 Jan 27.

Authors

Jian Zhi¹, Siwei Zhao², Min Zhou³, Ruiqi Wang², Fuqiang Huang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of High-Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, P. R. China.
² Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences and State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, P. R. China.
³ Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Department of Applied Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, P. R. China.

Abstract

A solid-state zinc-ion battery can fundamentally eliminate dendrite formation and hydrogen evolution on the zinc anode from aqueous systems. However, enabling fast zinc ion ⁺ conduction in solid crystals is thought to be impossible. Here, we demonstrated a fluorine-doping approach to achieving fast Zn²⁺ transport in mesoporous Zn_yS_1-xF_x. The substitutional doping of fluoride ion with sulfide substantially reduces Zn²⁺ migration barrier in a crystalline phase, while mesopore channels with bounded dimethylformamide enable nondestructive Zn²⁺ conduction along inner pore surface. This mesoporous conductor features a high room-temperature Zn²⁺ conductivity (0.66 millisiemens per centimeter, compared with 0.01 to 1 millisiemens per centimeter for lithium solid-state electrolyte) with a superior cycling performance (89.5% capacity retention over 5000 cycles) in a solid zinc-ion battery and energy density (0.04 watt-hour per cubic centimeter) in a solid zinc-ion capacitor. The universality of this crystal engineering approach was also verified in other mesoporous zinc chalcogenide materials, which implies various types of potential Zn²⁺-conducting solid electrolytes.