Abstract
Rechargeable aqueous zinc-organic batteries are promising energy storage systems with low-cost aqueous electrolyte and zinc metal anode. The electrochemical properties can be systematically adjusted with molecular design on organic cathode materials. Herein, we use a symmetric small molecule quinone cathode, tetraamino-p-benzoquinone (TABQ), with desirable functional groups to protonate and accomplish dominated proton insertion from weakly acidic zinc electrolyte. The hydrogen bonding network formed with carbonyl and amino groups on the TABQ molecules allows facile proton conduction through the Grotthuss-type mechanism. It guarantees activation energies below 300 meV for charge transfer and proton diffusion. The TABQ cathode delivers a high capacity of 303 mAh g−1 at 0.1 A g−1 in a zinc-organic battery. With the increase of current density to 5 A g−1, 213 mAh g−1 capacity is still preserved with stable cycling for 1000 times. Our work proposes an effective approach towards high performance organic electrode materials.
Highlights
Rechargeable aqueous zinc-organic batteries are promising energy storage systems with lowcost aqueous electrolyte and zinc metal anode
A broad band shows up on the right side as highlighted in cyan. It suggests the redshift of part of the N-H stretching vibration peak, which is a typical behavior upon the formation of hydrogen bonds[38,39]
We studied the sublimation behavior of TABQ using the setup shown in Supplementary Fig. 1, and benzoquinone was applied as the comparing standard
Summary
Rechargeable aqueous zinc-organic batteries are promising energy storage systems with lowcost aqueous electrolyte and zinc metal anode. The TABQ electrode functions with dominated proton de/ intercalation and experiences low activation energies for charge transfer and diffusion. The solubility of TABQ in 1 M ZnSO4, which is a conventional electrolyte for zinc batteries, was quantified by UV–vis analysis (Fig. 1f)[37].
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