Abstract
The increasing demands on stretchable power supply for wearable electronics accelerate the development of stretchable batteries. Zn-based batteries are promising to be applied in wearable electronics due to their outstanding performance, intrinsic safety, low cost, and environmental friendliness. Recently, stretchable Zn-based batteries are designed to demonstrate the capability of delivering excellent electrochemical performance, meanwhile maintaining their mechanical stability. This review provides an overview of different strategies and designs to realize stretchability in different Zn-based battery components. The general strategies to realize stretchability are first introduced, followed by the specific designs on the cathode, anode, and electrolytes of Zn batteries. Moreover, current issues and possible strategies are also highlighted.
Highlights
With the rapid development of wearable smart devices, such as wearable displays, health-monitoring devices, and active radio-frequency identification tags, many researchers have carried out in-depth research on stretchable batteries for their use as compatible power supplies (Liang et al, 2017a; Rogers et al, 2019; Lee et al, 2020)
The Zn-anode reactions can be classified into mild/neutral electrolytes and alkaline electrolytes, where reactions can be elaborated as Zn # Zn2+ + 2e− for the mild/neutral electrolytes and they can be elaborated as Zn + 4OH−# Zn(OH)42− + 2e− for alkaline cases (Zhou et al, 2021)
Regarding the mild electrolytes, the highly cross-linked polyacrylamide (PAM) hydrogel was demonstrated with a high ionic conductivity of up to 17.3 × 10−3 S cm−1 and remarkable stretchability of up to 3,000% deformation (Figure 2J) (Li et al, 2018), which has successfully been applied to different Zn-ion battery systems in mild electrolytes, where the battery performance can accommodate a high specific capacity of 302.1 mA h g−1 and a volumetric energy density of 53.8 mWh cm−3
Summary
With the rapid development of wearable smart devices, such as wearable displays, health-monitoring devices, and active radio-frequency identification tags, many researchers have carried out in-depth research on stretchable batteries for their use as compatible power supplies (Liang et al, 2017a; Rogers et al, 2019; Lee et al, 2020). The performance under stretchability should be reliable, where the as-fabricated device should be capable of enduring mechanical strain and maintaining stable functionality. Such stretchability is challenging to achieve in conventionally layerstacked battery configurations, where multiple component layers are intrinsically made into a grid (Zhang et al, 2015; Song et al, 2019). As alternative and promising systems, significant developments in aqueous chemistries have been achieved for stretchable batteries, due to the intrinsic safety of aqueous electrolytes (Zhang H. et al, 2021; Liang et al, 2021). The representative Zn-ion batteries are the most promising systems due to the outstanding electrochemical performance of Zn-
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