Engineering p‐Band Center of Oxygen Boosting H<sup>+</sup> Intercalation in δ‐MnO<sub>2</sub> for Aqueous Zinc Ion Batteries
Jianhua Zhang, Wenbin Li, Jingjing Wang, Xiaohua Pu, Gaini Zhang, Shuai Wang, Ni Wang, Xifei Li
Abstract
Abstract In aqueous zinc ion batteries (ZIBs), the H + intercalation possesses superior electrochemical kinetics with excellent rate capability, however, precisely modulating H + intercalation has been still challenging. Herein, a critical modification of pre‐intercalating metal ions in the MnO 2 interlayer (M−MnO 2 ) with controllable p‐band center ( ϵ p ) of O is reported to modulate the H + intercalation. The modulation of metal‐O bond type and covalency degree on the average charge of O atom results in optimized ϵ p and H + adsorption energy for M−MnO 2 , thus promoting the balance between H + adsorption and desorption, which plays a determinant role on H + intercalation. The optimized Cu−MnO 2 delivers superior rate capability with the capacity of 153 mAh g −1 at a high rate of 3 A g −1 after 1000 cycles. This work demonstrates that ϵ p could be a significant descriptor for H + intercalation, and tuning ϵ p effectively increases H + intercalation contribution with excellent rate capability in ZIBs.