Enhanced H<sup>+</sup> Storage of a MnO<sub>2</sub> Cathode via a MnO<sub>2</sub> Nanolayer Interphase Transformed from Manganese Phosphate
You Zuo, Tengfei Meng, Hao Tian, Lei Ling, Huanlin Zhang, Hang Zhang, Xiaohong Sun, Shu Cai
Abstract
The MnO 2 cathode has attracted extensive attention in aqueous zinc ion battery research due to its environmental benignity, low cost, and high capacity. However, sluggish kinetics of hydrated zinc ion and manganese dissolution lead to insufficient rate and cycle performances. In this study, a manganese phosphate nanolayer synthesized in situ on a MnO 2 cathode can be transformed into a δ-MnO 2 nanolayer interphase after activation upon cycling, endowing the interphase with abundant interlayer water. As a result, the δ-MnO 2 nanolayer interphase with the function of H + topochemistry significantly enhances H + (de)insertion in the MnO 2 cathode, which leads to a kinetics conversion from Zn 2+ -dominated (de)insertion to H + -dominated (de)insertion, thus endowing the MnO 2 cathode with superior rate and cycle performances (85.9% capacity retention after 1000 cycles at 10 A g –1 ). This strategy can be highly scalable for other manganese-based cathodes and provides an insight for developing high-performance aqueous zinc ion batteries.