Lanthanum nitrate as aqueous electrolyte additive for favourable zinc metal electrodeposition.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35668132.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-30939-8 and PMC identifier 9170708.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Aqueous zinc batteries are appealing devices for cost-effective and environmentally sustainable energy storage. However, the zinc metal deposition at the anode strongly influences the battery cycle life and performance. To circumvent this issue, here we propose the use of lanthanum nitrate (La(NO<sub>3</sub>)<sub>3</sub>) as supporting salt for aqueous zinc sulfate (ZnSO<sub>4</sub>) electrolyte solutions. Via physicochemical and electrochemical characterizations, we demonstrate that this peculiar electrolyte formulation weakens the electric double layer repulsive force, thus, favouring dense metallic zinc deposits and regulating the charge distribution at the zinc metal|electrolyte interface. When tested in Zn||VS<sub>2</sub> full coin cell configuration (with cathode mass loading of 16 mg cm<sup>-2</sup>), the electrolyte solution containing the lanthanum ions enables almost 1000 cycles at 1 A g<sup>-1</sup> (after 5 activation cycles at 0.05 A g<sup>-1</sup>) with a stable discharge capacity of about 90 mAh g<sup>-1</sup> and an average cell discharge voltage of ∼0.54 V.