Rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) are an
attractive
alternative for flexible energy storage devices due to their excellent
safety and low cost. One of the main challenges that plagues their
practical applications is the restricted variety of cathode materials
with fast reaction kinetics and good mechanical properties. Herein,
we prepared rose-like VS2 nanosheets which have decent
specific capacities, metallic conductivity, and open-enough channels
and further incorporated them into a single-walled carbon nanotube
(SWCNT) network, achieving a C–V chemical-bonded freestanding
VS2@SWCNT (C-VS2) composite. Such chemical bonding
in the composites builds a bridge for rapid electron transfer and
ion diffusion in the longitudinal direction from one layer to another
layer. As a result, the reversible Zn/C-VS2 system in core
cells exhibits a high specific capacity (205.3 mA h g–1 at 0.1 A g–1), an excellent cyclic stability (115.4
mA h g–1 was obtained after 1500 cycles at 5 A g–1), and a remarkable rate capability (135.4 mA h g–1 at 10 A g–1). Furthermore, the
freestanding C-VS2 films with good flexibility and conductivity
can serve as a flexible cathode to assemble soft-packaged ZIBs. Meanwhile,
the soft-packaged ZIB has good electrochemical stability even under
different bending conditions (the discharge capacity dropped by only
2.1 mA h g–1 after bending). This work offers insights
into the rational design of zinc-ion hosts throughout chemical bond
engineering.
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