Supramolecular Gel‐Derived Highly Efficient Bifunctional Catalysts for Omnidirectionally Stretchable Zn–Air Batteries with Extreme Environmental Adaptability

Abstract

Most existing stretchable batteries can generally only be stretched uniaxially and suffer from poor mechanical and electrochemical robustness to withstand extreme mechanical and environmental challenges. A highly efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst is herein developed via the unique self-templated conversion of a guanosine-based supramolecular hydrogel and presents a fully integrated design strategy to successfully fabricate an omnidirectionally stretchable and extremely environment-adaptable Zn-air battery (ZAB) through the synergistic engineering of active materials and device architecture. The electrocatalyst demonstrates a very low reversible overpotential of only 0.68 V for oxygen reduction/evolution reactions (ORR/OER). This ZAB exhibits superior omnidirectional stretchability with a full-cell areal strain of >1000% and excellent durability, withstanding more than 10 000 stretching cycles. Promisingly, without any additional pre-treatment, the ZAB exhibits outstanding ultra-low temperature tolerance (down to −60 °C) and superior waterproofness, withstanding continuous water rinsing (>5 h) and immersion (>3 h). The present work offers a promising strategy for the design of omnidirectionally stretchable and high-performance energy storage devices for future on-skin wearable applications.

Supramolecular Polymer Intertwined Free-Standing Bifunctional Membrane Catalysts for All-Temperature Flexible Zn–Air Batteries

“…High-resolution TEM images (Fig. 2 c, d) reveal the formation of uniform distribution of amorphous supramolecular polymer (~ 3 nm in thickness) interfaced on the NDCN frameworks, with the lattice spacing of 0.33 nm corresponding to the (002) crystal plane of carbon [ 4 , 16 , 33 ]. Aberration-corrected TEM image (Fig.…”

“…The nanostructured supramolecular polymers have attracted significant attention as new emerging energy materials owing to the merits of large surface area, ease of functionalization, high compositional tunability, and facile synthesis process. The structural uncertainty, poor crystallinity, inferior electrical conductivity for electron transport, interfacial features to accommodate large deformation, and poor temperature tolerance of supramolecular polymers are the critical issues for the fabrication of competent oxygen bifunctional catalysts with capability for extremely harsh mechanical, environmental, and electrochemical operations [ 4 , 5 , 10 ]. These demerits of supramolecular polymers can be diminished by cross-linking of deicing mediators such as metal-free or metallic frameworks into the polymers.…”

A Full‐Device Autonomous Self‐Healing Stretchable Soft Battery from Self‐Bonded Eutectogels

“…In comparison to other state-of-the-art stretchable and/ or self-healable batteries (Figure 6e; Table S13, Supporting Information), [9,38,51,52] the as-prepared AESB represents the only material design strategy that can simultaneously achieve www.advmat.de www.advancedsciencenews.com device-level omnidirectionally intrinsic stretchability, full-cell autonomous self-healability, crack resistant capability, complex-shaped customizability and a wide temperature tolerance range. The electrochemical performance of AESB is also much better than the previously reported all-hydrogel battery [53] and many stretchable and/or self-healable batteries using hydrogel/iongel electrolytes, as well as conventional rigid batteries using liquid eutectic electrolytes (Figure 6e; Table S13, Supporting Information).…”

Copper Collector Generated Cu+/Cu2+ Redox Pair for Enhanced Efficiency and Lifetime of Zn–Ni/Air Hybrid Battery

“…The waterproofness of the battery is the guarantee for its safety and environmental adaptability in practical applications. , To further investigate the contribution of the Zn–Cu/Ni battery on the hybrid battery, it was also tested in an oxygen-free environment. As displayed in Figure a,b, three conventional ZABs or two hybrid Zn–Cu/Ni/air batteries in series immersed in water could drive an LED screen.…”

“…However, the introduction of multiple redox pairs could further enhance the energy efficiency and stability of hybrid batteries. Furthermore, the single-component catalyst as a multifunctional electrode is very difficult to operate under harsh conditions, such as in the absence of oxygen, catalyst poisoning, or collector breakage. , It is of great significance to develop hybrid batteries with strong environmental adaptability . The NiFe-layered double hydroxide (LDH) can be adopted as a superior OER catalyst, − which may simultaneously occur with a faradaic redox reaction of Ni 2+ /Ni 3+ for constructing a Zn–Ni/air hybrid battery by pairing with an ORR catalyst.…”