Unravelling rechargeable zinc-copper batteries by a chloride shuttle in a biphasic electrolyte.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37095106.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-37642-2 and PMC identifier 10125991.
- 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
The zinc-copper redox couple exhibits several merits, which motivated us to reconstruct the rechargeable Daniell cell by combining chloride shuttle chemistry in a zinc chloride-based aqueous/organic biphasic electrolyte. An ion-selective interface was established to restrict the copper ions in the aqueous phase while ensuring chloride transfer. We demonstrated that the copper-water-chloro solvation complexes are the descriptors, which are predominant in aqueous solutions with optimized concentrations of zinc chloride; thus, copper crossover is prevented. Without this prevention, the copper ions are mostly in the hydration state and exhibit high spontaneity to be solvated in the organic phase. The zinc-copper cell delivers a highly reversible capacity of 395 mAh g<sup>-1</sup> with nearly 100% coulombic efficiency, affording a high energy density of 380 Wh kg<sup>-1</sup> based on the copper chloride mass. The proposed battery chemistry is expandable to other metal chlorides, which widens the cathode materials available for aqueous chloride ion batteries.