Alcohol molecule coupling: A universal approach to modulating amorphousness in vanadium-based cathodes for high-rate and durable aqueous zinc-ion batteries
Haobin Song, Yangfeng Cui, Yifan Li, Xueliang Li, Yixiang Li, Nan Zhao, Wenjing Li, Chao Wu, Shibo Xi, Shaozhuan Huang, Hui Ying Yang
Abstract
Vanadium oxides (VOs) are promising cathode materials for aqueous batteries due to their high theoretical capacity, but they face challenges such as sluggish kinetics and V dissolution. To overcome these issues, we introduce a universal alcohol-based molecule coupling (AMC) method to regulate amorphousness and inhibit V dissolution in VOs (VO 2 , V 2 O 5 , and V 6 O 13 ), resulting in high-performance cathodes. The strategy enables alcohol molecules with different chain lengths (ethanol, isopropanol, and isobutanol) to couple with VOs by forming V─OH bonds under Lewis acid–based interactions, inducing controlled amorphization. Among these, isopropanol coupling stands out by enabling the formation of short-range ordered amorphous structure (SOA-VO/Ipr). This structure enhances the reaction kinetics and suppresses V dissolution. As a result, the SOA-VO/Ipr cathode achieves 219.4 mAh g −1 at 100 A g −1 , retains 92.6% capacity over 10,000 cycles, and delivers 228.8 mAh g −1 at 9.1 A g −1 under high loading (21.9 mg cm −2 ) over 3500 cycles, demonstrating a promising method for durable zinc-ion batteries.