Dr. Li Zhanyu's Team Achieved important progress

Recently, Dr. Li Zhanyu and others of the Advanced Materials and Energy Devices Team of the College of Physics Science and Technology have made important progress in the research on energy storage mechanism of aqueous aluminum batteries. Related work “Bimetallic Rechargeable Al/Zn Hybrid Aqueous Batteries Based on Al-Zn Alloys with Composite Electrolytes” was published online in the internationally renowned journal Advanced Materials (DOI: 10.1002/adma.202206099, IF=32.086) by Hebei University as the first unit. Yang Xiaohu, a graduate student of our university, is the first author. Dr. Li Zhanyu and Professor Zhang Wenming are the corresponding authors.

Abundant aluminum has high theoretical capacity and volumetric energy density. Furthermore, the high safety of an aqueous aluminum ion battery makes it a strong candidate for large-scale energy storage systems. However, developing it is not easy due to problems such as the collapse of cathode material structure and the dissolution of metallic aluminum. In this project, the researchers developed a new battery system, namely Al-Zn/Al(OTF)3+HOTF+Zn(OTF)2/AlxZnyMnO2·nH2O. The cathode adopts MnO topological transformation to ensure the formation of AlxMnO2·nH2O. The topological transformation changes the structure of the cathode material so that Zn2+ can be embedded in the AlxMnO2·nH2O spinel structure to offer support for the material structure. On the anode, Zn2+ in the electrolyte is deposited on the Al anode to form a regional Al-Zn alloy to avoid the dissolution of metallic aluminum. Zn2+ is reduced to Zn metal during discharge, which provides a platform for the secondary discharge and is beneficial to the improvement of battery capacity. The system provides a 1.6 V discharge platform with a first-time discharge capacity of 554 mAh/g and a high reversible capacity of 313 mAh/g after 100 cycles. This research contributes to a new idea for further development of aqueous aluminum ion batteries (AAIBs).

The work above has received financial support from the public test platform of ACTEM of the School of Physics, National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the high-level talent introduction project of Hebei University.

VIEW FULL TEXT: https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202206099