Hierarchical accordion-like manganese oxide@carbon hybrid with strong interaction heterointerface for high-performance aqueous zinc ion batteries.

Abstract

Aqueous zinc ion batteries have attracted extensive concern as a promising candidate for large-scale energy storage because of their high theoretical specific capacity, low cost and inherent safety. However, the lacking of applicable cathode materials with outstanding electrochemical performance have severely hindered the further development of aqueous zinc ion batteries. Herein, we report a hierarchical accordion-like manganese oxide@carbon (MnO@C) hybrid with strong interaction heterointerface and comprehensively inquire into its electrochemical performance as cathode materials for aqueous zinc ion batteries. The unique hierarchical accordion-like layered structure coupling with strong interaction heterointerface between small MnO and carbon matrix efficaciously improve the ion/electron transfer process and enhance structure stability of the MnO@C hybrid. Benefitting from these unique advantages, the MnO@C hybrid bestows excellent specific capacity of 456mAhg-1 at 50mAg-1. Impressively, the MnO@C hybrid presents distinguished long-term cycling stability with fairly low decay rates of only 0.0079% per cycle even over 2000 cycles at 2000mAg-1. Moreover, comprehensive characterizations are executed to elucidate the mechanism involved. Therefore, this work affords a new idea for developing outstanding performance manganese-based cathode materials for aqueous zinc ion batteries.