Promoting the conversion reaction kinetics of aqueous zinc-tellurium batteries via hierarchical molybdenum diselenide@reduced graphene oxide hybrid served as tellurium hosts

Abstract

Recently, the aqueous zinc‑tellurium (ZnTe) batteries have garnered a lot of interest as a result of their unique conversion mechanism, low cost, and innate safety. Nevertheless, ZnTe batteries still possess an inevitable disadvantage which is their slow reaction kinetics. Herein, this work proposes a new strategy to accelerate the reaction kinetics by introducing the molybdenum diselenide@reduced graphene oxide (MoSe2@rGO) hybrid in ZnTe batteries. The MoSe2@rGO hybrid not only can serve as tellurium (Te) hosts on account of the unique hierarchical structure, but also can significantly promote the reaction kinetics due to the catalytic property. Benefiting from the presence of the MoSe2@rGO hybrid, the as-assembled aqueous ZnTe batteries deliver high discharge capacity (450 mAh g−1 at 0.15 A g−1) as well as outstanding cycle performance. Additionally, multiple ex-situ characterizations are used to illustrate the reversible conversion mechanism. This work may shed some light on developing aqueous ZnTe batteries with high performance.