A High-Capacity Ammonium Vanadate Cathode for Zinc-Ion Battery
Qifei Li, Xianhong Rui, Dong Chen, Yuezhan Feng, Ni Xiao, Li‐Yong Gan, Qi Zhang, Yan Yu, Shaoming Huang
Abstract
Abstract Given the advantages of being abundant in resources, environmental benign and highly safe, rechargeable zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) enter the global spotlight for their potential utilization in large-scale energy storage. Despite their preliminary success, zinc-ion storage that is able to deliver capacity > 400 mAh g −1 remains a great challenge. Here, we demonstrate the viability of NH 4 V 4 O 10 (NVO) as high-capacity cathode that breaks through the bottleneck of ZIBs in limited capacity. The first-principles calculations reveal that layered NVO is a good host to provide fast Zn 2+ ions diffusion channel along its [010] direction in the interlayer space. On the other hand, to further enhance Zn 2+ ion intercalation kinetics and long-term cycling stability, a three-dimensional (3D) flower-like architecture that is self-assembled by NVO nanobelts (3D-NVO) is rationally designed and fabricated through a microwave-assisted hydrothermal method. As a result, such 3D-NVO cathode possesses high capacity (485 mAh g −1 ) and superior long-term cycling performance (3000 times) at 10 A g −1 (~ 50 s to full discharge/charge). Additionally, based on the excellent 3D-NVO cathode, a quasi-solid-state ZIB with capacity of 378 mAh g −1 is developed.