Tianjin University, Hu Wenbin team \”natural energy\”: research has made important progress in the field of water-based zinc-based batteries

Compared to traditional organic system battery, battery water system has a high security, low cost and high energy density, high concern at home and abroad, become the focus of research and development of batteries and energy storage field. Zinc-based batteries are currently the main problem lies in the lack of bi-functional catalyst and efficient electrode materials, the oxygen reduction reaction is slow and precipitation; poor stability electrolyte; likely to occur during charging and discharging zinc dendrite like. In order to solve the above problem, Tianjin School of Materials Science and Engineering and University Professor Hu Wenbin team key scientific focus and the presence of zinc-based batteries technical problem was prepared from the electrode material controllable, and the development of novel electrolyte battery design innovative research had been carried out, the novel aqueous zinc-based batteries, the flexible wearable device battery research and development has made significant progress . In recent years, research in Nature Energy, Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, Advanced Energy Materials, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. And other top international academic journals published research papers more than thirty papers, more than 20 invention patents, a number of zinc based battery technology has entered a key stage of the promotion of industrialization. Recently, innovative team proposed based on the use of electrochemical and metallurgical principles electrolyte decoupling strategy, acidic and alkaline MnO2 dissolved reversible energy storage mechanism Zn / electrodepositable Also in the battery . Based on this mechanism, we can break conventional aqueous battery low voltage bottleneck, The Zn-MnO2 cell operating voltage of 2.7V or more to a substantial increase, and may significantly improve the energy density and cycle performance of the battery. In addition, this strategy has also been shown to be applicable to other aqueous zinc-based batteries, such as Zn-Cu, and Zn-Ag battery. Compared with the traditional based on ion insertion / extraction mechanism embedded secondary battery, this new aqueous zinc – manganese battery can utilize almost 100% of theoretical capacity of MnO2, and the operating voltage can be obtained up to about 2.8V, while the depth of discharge a case where a high cycle life can be obtained .

To further promote the study and demonstration of new high-security authentication application of an aqueous size of energy storage in the battery, group such Zn-MnO2 battery with solar power generation and wind power generation apparatus in combination with, to achieve a clean and efficient energy utilization , the increasingly serious environmental pollution and alleviate optimize the energy structure and maintain the sustainable development of great significance. The innovative work has recently been published online in top international journals Nature Energy on the subject of attention at home and abroad, the American Chemical Society news media C & ENs to \”Greener batteries for grid storage \”conducted a special report for the title. ( Decoupling electrolytes towards stable and high energy rechargeable aqueous zinc-manganese dioxide batteries , Nature Energy , doi: 10.1038 / s41560-020-0584-y, Online issue date: MAR 2020, as the only unit of Tianjin University, Professor Zhong Cheng as the first author) paper links https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0584-y