Think zinc: An ideal aqueous energy storage device, referred to as a zinc ion battery, is presented. The device is characterized by high capacity, fast charge/discharge capability, safety, and ...environmental friendliness. It is composed of an α‐MnO2 cathode, a zinc anode, and a mild ZnSO4 or Zn(NO3)2 aqueous electrolyte (see scheme). The battery chemistry is based on the migration of Zn2+ ions between cathode and anode.
Redox active organic quinones are a class of potentially low cost, sustainable, and high energy density electroactive materials for energy storage applications due to their large specific capacity, ...high redox reactivity, and excellent electrochemical reversibility. Moreover, their electrochemical properties can easily be tailored through molecular structure engineering. A variety of quinones and their derivatives have been investigated as promising electroactive materials for versatile applications including Li, Na, K, and Zn ion batteries, supercapacitors (SCs),
etc.
This review aims to summarize the recent progress and challenges of organic quinones towards advanced electrochemical energy storage applications. The relationships between the molecular structure and polar groups of quinones with the corresponding energy density, voltage plateau, and specific capacity properties are elucidated. Then, the state-of-the-art progress of organic quinones in Li ion batteries, Na ion batteries, K ion batteries, Mg ion batteries, Zn ion batteries, SCs and redox flow batteries is reviewed in detail. The strategies to address the low tap density, small electrical conductivity, and strong dissolution issues of quinones are also summarized, followed by the critical challenges and important future directions for the application of quinone compounds as electroactive materials for advanced electrochemical energy storage devices.
This review provides an up-to-date summary of the progress of organic quinones as electroactive materials for advanced electrochemical energy storage devices.
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Efficient and reliable energy storage systems are crucial for our modern society. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) with excellent performance are widely used in portable electronics and ...electric vehicles (EVs), but frequent fires and explosions limit their further and more widespread applications. This review summarizes aspects of LIB safety and discusses the related issues, strategies, and testing standards. Specifically, it begins with a brief introduction to LIB working principles and cell structures, and then provides an overview of the notorious thermal runaway, with an emphasis on the effects of mechanical, electrical, and thermal abuse. The following sections examine strategies for improving cell safety, including approaches through cell chemistry, cooling, and balancing, afterwards describing current safety standards and corresponding tests. The review concludes with insights into potential future developments and the prospects for safer LIBs.
Flexible and safe batteries, coupled with high performance and low cost, constitute a radical advance in portable and wearable electronics, especially considering the fact that these flexible devices ...are likely to experience more mechanical impacts and potential damage than well-protected rigid batteries. However, flexible lithium ion batteries (LIBs) are vastly limited by their intrinsic safety and cost issues. Here we introduce an extremely safe and wearable solid-state zinc ion battery (ZIB) comprising a novel gelatin and PAM based hierarchical polymer electrolyte (HPE) and an α-MnO
2
nanorod/carbon nanotube (CNT) cathode. Benefiting from the well-designed electrolyte and electrodes, the flexible solid-state ZIB delivers a high areal energy density and power density (6.18 mW h cm
−2
and 148.2 mW cm
−2
, respectively), high specific capacity (306 mA h g
−1
) and excellent cycling stability (97% capacity retention after 1000 cycles at 2772 mA g
−1
). More importantly, the solid-state ZIB offers a high wearability and an extreme safety performance over conventional flexible LIBs, and performs very well under various severe conditions, such as being greatly cut, bent, hammered, punctured, sewed, washed in water or even put on fire. In addition, flexible ZIBs were integrated in series to power a commercial smart watch, a wearable pulse sensor, and a smart insole, which has been achieved to the best of our knowledge for the first time. These results demonstrate the promising potential of ZIBs in many practical wearable applications and offer a new platform for flexible and wearable energy storage technologies.
Emerging research toward next-generation flexible and wearable electronics has stimulated the efforts to build highly wearable, durable, and deformable energy devices with excellent electrochemical ...performances. Here, we develop a high-performance, waterproof, tailorable, and stretchable yarn zinc ion battery (ZIB) using double-helix yarn electrodes and a cross-linked polyacrylamide (PAM) electrolyte. Due to the high ionic conductivity of the PAM electrolyte and helix structured electrodes, the yarn ZIB delivers a high specific capacity and volumetric energy density (302.1 mAh g–1 and 53.8 mWh cm–3, respectively) as well as excellent cycling stability (98.5% capacity retention after 500 cycles). More importantly, the quasi-solid-state yarn ZIB also demonstrates superior knittability, good stretchability (up to 300% strain), and superior waterproof capability (high capacity retention of 96.5% after 12 h underwater operation). In addition, the long yarn ZIB can be tailored into short ones, and each part still functions well. Owing to its weavable and tailorable nature, a 1.1 m long yarn ZIB was cut into eight parts and woven into a textile that was used to power a long flexible belt embedded with 100 LEDs and a 100 cm2 flexible electroluminescent panel.
The increasing demands of energy storage require the significant improvement of current Li‐ion battery electrode materials and the development of advanced electrode materials. Thus, it is necessary ...to gain an in‐depth understanding of the reaction processes, degradation mechanism, and thermal decomposition mechanisms under realistic operation conditions. This understanding can be obtained by in situ/operando characterization techniques, which provide information on the structure evolution, redox mechanism, solid‐electrolyte interphase (SEI) formation, side reactions, and Li‐ion transport properties under operating conditions. Here, the recent developments in the in situ/operando techniques employed for the investigation of the structural stability, dynamic properties, chemical environment changes, and morphological evolution are described and summarized. The experimental approaches reviewed here include X‐ray, electron, neutron, optical, and scanning probes. The experimental methods and operating principles, especially the in situ cell designs, are described in detail. Representative studies of the in situ/operando techniques are summarized, and finally the major current challenges and future opportunities are discussed. Several important battery challenges are likely to benefit from these in situ/operando techniques, including the inhomogeneous reactions of high‐energy‐density cathodes, the development of safe and reversible Li metal plating, and the development of stable SEI.
Recent developments of the five important in situ/operando characterization categories for lithium battery research are summarized, including X‐ray, electron, neutron, optical, and scanning probe techniques. For each technique, the operating principles and in situ cell design are described in detail, including representative studies of typical electrode materials and related processes summarized in tables for easy comparison and cross reference.
All‐solid‐state lithium metal battery is the most promising next‐generation energy storage device. However, the low ionic conductivity of solid electrolytes and high interfacial impedance with ...electrode are the main factors to limit the development of all‐solid‐state batteries. In this work, a low resistance–integrated all‐solid‐state battery is designed with excellent electrochemical performance that applies the polyethylene oxide (PEO) with lithium bis(trifluoromethylsulphonyl)imide as both binder of cathode and matrix of composite electrolyte embedded with Li7La3Zr2O12 (LLZO) nanowires (PLLN). The PEO in cathode and PLLN are fused at high temperature to form an integrated all‐solid‐state battery structure, which effectively strengthens the interface compatibility and stability between cathode and PLLN to guarantee high efficient ion transportation during long cycling. The LLZO nanowires uniformly distributed in PLLN can increase the ionic conductivity and mechanical strength of composite electrolyte efficiently, which induces the uniform deposition of lithium metal, thereby suppressing the lithium dendrite growth. The Li symmetric cells using PLLN can stably cycle for 1000 h without short circuit at 60 °C. The integrated LiFePO4/PLLN/Li batteries show excellent cycling stability at both 60 and 45 °C. The study proposed a novel and robust battery structure with outstanding electrochemical properties.
A low resistance–integrated all‐solid‐state Li metal battery with excellent electrochemical performance is designed. The structure not only guarantees high ionic conductivity and good mechanical properties to suppress lithium dendrite growth by using polyethylene oxide (PEO)/lithium bis(trifluoromethylsulphonyl)imide embedded with Li7La3Zr2O12 nanowire composite electrolyte, but also decreases the interfacial impedance by applying PEO in both electrolyte and cathode that can fuse during operation.
Sodium-ion batteries have captured widespread attention for grid-scale energy storage owing to the natural abundance of sodium. The performance of such batteries is limited by available electrode ...materials, especially for sodium-ion layered oxides, motivating the exploration of high compositional diversity. How the composition determines the structural chemistry is decisive for the electrochemical performance but very challenging to predict, especially for complex compositions. We introduce the "cationic potential" that captures the key interactions of layered materials and makes it possible to predict the stacking structures. This is demonstrated through the rational design and preparation of layered electrode materials with improved performance. As the stacking structure determines the functional properties, this methodology offers a solution toward the design of alkali metal layered oxides.
Ambient‐temperature sodium–sulfur (Na–S) batteries are considered a promising energy storage system due to their high theoretical energy density and low costs. However, great challenges remain in ...achieving a high rechargeable capacity and long cycle life. Herein we report a stable quasi‐solid‐state Na‐S battery enabled by a poly(S‐pentaerythritol tetraacrylate (PETEA))‐based cathode and a (PETEA‐tris2‐(acryloyloxy)ethyl isocyanurate (THEICTA))‐based gel polymer electrolyte. The polymeric sulfur electrode strongly anchors sulfur through chemical binding and inhibits the shuttle effect. Meanwhile, the in situ formed polymer electrolyte with high ionic conductivity and enhanced safety successfully stabilizes the Na anode/electrolyte interface, and simultaneously immobilizes soluble Na polysulfides. The as‐developed quasi‐solid‐state Na‐S cells exhibit a high reversible capacity of 877 mA h g−1 at 0.1 C and an extended cycling stability.
Energy storage: A stable quasi‐solid‐state Na–S battery has been obtained using a poly(S‐pentaerythritol tetraacrylate (PETEA)) cathode and a (PETEA‐tris2‐(acryloyloxy)ethyl isocyanurate (THEICTA)) gel polymer electrolyte. The electrode strongly anchors sulfur by chemical binding, meanwhile the polymer electrolyte with high ionic conductivity and stable Na/electrolyte interface effectively suppresses the shuttle of polysulfides.
High-temperature sodium-sulfur batteries operating at 300-350 °C have been commercially applied for large-scale energy storage and conversion. However, the safety concerns greatly inhibit their ...widespread adoption. Herein, we report a room-temperature sodium-sulfur battery with high electrochemical performances and enhanced safety by employing a "cocktail optimized" electrolyte system, containing propylene carbonate and fluoroethylene carbonate as co-solvents, highly concentrated sodium salt, and indium triiodide as an additive. As verified by first-principle calculation and experimental characterization, the fluoroethylene carbonate solvent and high salt concentration not only dramatically reduce the solubility of sodium polysulfides, but also construct a robust solid-electrolyte interface on the sodium anode upon cycling. Indium triiodide as redox mediator simultaneously increases the kinetic transformation of sodium sulfide on the cathode and forms a passivating indium layer on the anode to prevent it from polysulfide corrosion. The as-developed sodium-sulfur batteries deliver high capacity and long cycling stability.
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