Recent Advances in Electrode Design for Rechargeable Zinc–Air Batteries

Abstract

With the speedy development of contemporary society and industry, severe energy and environmental crises are looming. [1] To cope with the ongoing issues, more attention has been distracted from traditional fossil fuels to sustainable and green chemical energy sources such as fuel cells and batteries, [2] which are low-carbon emission and eco-friendly with high energy density. [3] Particularly, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are leading to the rechargeable battery markets with wide applications in our everyday life, such as smart phones, laptops, electric vehicles, smart grids, and mobile power supplies. [4] However, the high cost, safety risk from the Li combustibility, limited energy density, and the potential supply shortage of Li severely impede the further development of LIBs. Therefore, it is urgent to explore and develop more efficient and safer energy storage devices. [5] Metal-air batteries (MABs) contain anode metals with high valence electron to atomic nuclei ratio (such as Li, Na, K, Mg, Al, Zn, and Fe), and unique open cell structure with the cathode oxygen (O 2 ) from external infinitely ambient, which have attracted great attention as emerging electrochemical energy storage devices due to their cost-effectiveness and high energy density. [4a,6] The theoretical voltage, specific energy density, volumetric energy density, and specific capacity of various MABs are compared in Figure 1a-d. [6a,7] Due to the lightweight nature of Li, the Li-air (oxygen) batteries can theoretically furnish the highest specific energy density, as well as high battery voltage. However, the MABs based on alkali metals (i.e., Li, Na, and K) are very sensitive to water and moisture, making them unsafe in aqueous environments. However, the low coulombic efficiency and self-discharge of these nonaqueous MABs limit their practical applications. Mg-air and Al-air batteries can also offer comparable theoretical energy densities and working voltages as Li-air batteries. Nevertheless, the serious parasitic corrosion resulted from the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) on Mg and Al electrodes surfaces and the nonrechargeable feature caused by thermodynamical infeasibility of the Al and Mg electrodeposition in aqueous electrolyte restrict their widespread applications. On the contrary, both Fe-air and Zn-air batteries (ZABs) can be recharged under aqueous environments. ZABs possess peerless advantages such as higher energy density and theoretical voltage under alkaline conditions than Fe-air batteries (Figure 1a-d). [8] Currently, the primary ZABs have been commercially used as hearing-aid batteries (Figure 1e), [9] and some companies such as EOS Energy Storage, FluidicEnergy, and ZincNyx have been committed to developing ZABs as grid energy storage systems. [6a,7a,8b,10] Given the distinct advantages of ZABs over others, this review will be focused on the ZABs.To improve the practical energy density of ZABs for extensive application, there are still some scientific and technical problems to be solved. The critical issues at th...

Electrospinning Synthesis of Self‐Standing Cobalt/Nanocarbon Hybrid Membrane for Long‐Life Rechargeable Zinc–Air Batteries

“…With the rapid development of consumable electronics and power facilities, the public has called for an extensive research into energy technologies. [1][2][3] Among them, zinc-air batteries (ZABs) have been potential alternatives due to their advantages of high energy density, environment friendliness and operation safety. [4][5][6] However, the complex and sluggish kinetics of oxygen reduction and evolution reactions (ORR/OER) at air electrodes during the discharge/charge process severely limit its electrochemical properties and lead to low power density and unsatisfactory cyclability.…”

Cation vacancy driven efficient CoFe-LDH-based electrocatalysts for water splitting and Zn–air batteries

“…1d). 31 The surface of the CoFe V -LDH edge was observed by HRTEM (Fig. S1), and parallel lattice stripes with an interplanar distance of 0.25 nm were assigned to the (012) plane of the crystalline CoFe-LDH (Inset of Fig.…”

Compressible Zn–Air Batteries Based on Metal–Organic Frameworks Nanoflake‐Assembled Carbon Frameworks for Portable Motion and Temperature Monitors

“…[16][17][18][19][20][21] Besides, flexible Zn-air batteries (FZABs) exhibit lightweight, favorable structural stability, thus are one of the most promising candidates as power source for portable and wearable sensors. [22][23][24][25][26] As the key component in FZABs, air electrodes are required to be active for oxygen electrocatalytic reaction, [27] but also have good mechanical flexibility and stability for wearable applications. [28] Recently, FZABs have been reported as power sources which successfully driven various portable sensors, such as pulse, [29] gas, [30] temperature and humidity, [31] and even the highly integrated sensor for the detection of ambient light, gyroscope, humidity, and so on.…”

“…[ 16–21 ] Besides, flexible Zn–air batteries (FZABs) exhibit lightweight, favorable structural stability, thus are one of the most promising candidates as power source for portable and wearable sensors. [ 22–26 ]…”