Hydrotropic solubilization of zinc acetates for sustainable aqueous battery electrolytes

Dejian Dong, Tairan Wang, Yue Sun, Jun Fan and Yi-Chun Lu ()
Additional contact information
Dejian Dong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Tairan Wang: City University of Hong Kong
Yue Sun: The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Jun Fan: City University of Hong Kong
Yi-Chun Lu: The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Nature Sustainability, 2023, vol. 6, issue 11, 1474-1484

Abstract: Abstract Among the more sustainable battery chemistries, the aqueous zinc system is receiving renewed interest. To accelerate the practical applications of this promising technology, an effective strategy is to deploy high salt concentration electrolytes that could address the critical technical barriers, notably hydrogen evolution reaction and dendrite growth at the anode side. However, the state-of-the-art recipes are either zinc-ion deficient or halogen salt dependent, both of which unfortunately create extra challenges. Here we show a highly concentrated aqueous electrolyte formula utilizing zinc acetate, an otherwise poorly water-soluble but cheap and eco-friendly salt. The unprecedented solubility (up to 23 m) is a result of the introduction of hydrotropic agents that transform the acetate anion ligands to a hydrophilic coordination structure. All three hydrotropic agents including potassium acetate, urea and acetamide are effective in constructing highly concentrated zinc acetate electrolytes with which the assembled Zn//pyrene-4,5,9,10-tetraone full cell retains 70% of its initial capacity after 4,000 cycles. This work provides a unique opportunity to design high-performance electrolytes for applications in the wide battery space.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01172-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natsus:v:6:y:2023:i:11:d:10.1038_s41893-023-01172-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/natsustain/

DOI: 10.1038/s41893-023-01172-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Sustainability is currently edited by Monica Contestabile

More articles in Nature Sustainability from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().