Naman Katyal

Postdoctoral Researcher

Urea-Modified Ternary Aqueous Electrolyte With Tuned Intermolecular Interactions and Confined Water Activity for High-Stability and High-Voltage Zinc-Ion Batteries


Journal article


Ziqing Wang, Jiefeng Diao, James N. Burrow, Kevin K. Reimund, Naman Katyal, Graeme Henkelman, Charles Buddie Mullins
Advanced Functional Materials, 2023


Cite

Cite

APA   Click to copy
Wang, Z., Diao, J., Burrow, J. N., Reimund, K. K., Katyal, N., Henkelman, G., & Mullins, C. B. (2023). Urea-Modified Ternary Aqueous Electrolyte With Tuned Intermolecular Interactions and Confined Water Activity for High-Stability and High-Voltage Zinc-Ion Batteries. Advanced Functional Materials. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202304791


Chicago/Turabian   Click to copy
Wang, Ziqing, Jiefeng Diao, James N. Burrow, Kevin K. Reimund, Naman Katyal, Graeme Henkelman, and Charles Buddie Mullins. “Urea-Modified Ternary Aqueous Electrolyte With Tuned Intermolecular Interactions and Confined Water Activity for High-Stability and High-Voltage Zinc-Ion Batteries.” Advanced Functional Materials (2023).


MLA   Click to copy
Wang, Ziqing, et al. “Urea-Modified Ternary Aqueous Electrolyte With Tuned Intermolecular Interactions and Confined Water Activity for High-Stability and High-Voltage Zinc-Ion Batteries.” Advanced Functional Materials, 2023, doi:10.1002/adfm.202304791.


BibTeX   Click to copy

@article{ziqing2023a,
  title = {Urea-Modified Ternary Aqueous Electrolyte With Tuned Intermolecular Interactions and Confined Water Activity for High-Stability and High-Voltage Zinc-Ion Batteries},
  year = {2023},
  journal = {Advanced Functional Materials},
  doi = {10.1002/adfm.202304791},
  author = {Wang, Ziqing and Diao, Jiefeng and Burrow, James N. and Reimund, Kevin K. and Katyal, Naman and Henkelman, Graeme and Mullins, Charles Buddie}
}

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) gain attention as promising energy storage devices due to their high safety. However, the narrow electrochemical window and unfavorable side reactions induced by water decomposition restrict their development. Thus, confining water activity to enhance stability and enlarge the electrochemical window is required. Herein, a 2.9 m (mol kgsolvent−1) Zn(ClO4)2−CO(NH2)2−H2O ternary aqueous eutectic electrolyte is prepared with restricted water activity at room temperature. The strong intermolecular interactions between CO(NH2)2 and H2O decrease the free H2O molecules and reduce their activity to suppress the parasitic reactions. Compared to conventional aqueous electrolytes, this urea-modified electrolyte exhibits similar ionic conductivity (6.83 mS cm−1) and viscosity (29.5 mPa s) but with a significantly expanded electrochemical stability window (2.6 V) than the conventional one (1.7 V). Additionally, the preferential adsorption and reduction of urea molecules on the zinc surface mediate the formation of an organic solid electrolyte interphase, which passivates the anode and facilitates homogeneous zinc deposition. As a result, this ternary aqueous electrolyte enables high-voltage zinc/vanadium batteries with a capacity of 125 mAh g−1 for 300 cycles at 5 A g−1. This finding demonstrates a low-cost and practicable approach for realizing stable aqueous zinc-ion batteries with an enlarged electrochemical stability window.