A zinc-air battery capable of working in anaerobic conditions and fast environmental energy harvesting
Wenxu Shang, Huan Wang, Wentao Yu, Yi He, Yanyi Ma, Ruixin Li, Zhen Wu, Peng Tan
Abstract
Zinc-air batteries are proposed as a promising battery system, although their application may be hindered by oxygen feed requirements. Herein, a zinc-air battery is reported using a functional positive electrode material (CuO). Benefiting from its oxygen reduction catalytic ability and lower redox potential than that of O2, the battery can switch freely between two modes: Zn-air mode under aerobic conditions with a discharge voltage of 1.28 V and Zn-Cu mode under anaerobic conditions with two discharge voltage plateaus at 1.13 and 0.79 V, breaking the limitation of traditional zinc-air batteries. Significantly, when switching from anaerobic to aerobic conditions, the CuO electrode can be oxidized to the pristine state in approximately 120 s. The analysis of the different characteristics of the electrode material may be enlightening for functional energy storage system design.