Novel polyaniline-polyoxovanadate cathode with dual carriers insertion for stable wide-temperature-range aqueous zinc-ion batteries

Abstract

Featuring low manufacturing costs and excellent operational safety, aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) are regarded as one of the most competitive candidates in the energy storage field. Yet cathode materials with slow ion transport kinetics or low ion storage capacity limit the electrochemical performance to be fully utilized in practical applications. Herein, an advanced organic-inorganic hybrid cathode material with amorphous state was developed, in which nanosized inorganic polyoxovanadate, K₅MnV₁₁O₃₂·10H₂O (MVO), interacted with organic polyaniline (PANI) by electrostatic interaction presents weak element dissolution and high redox activity. Combining multiple experimental characterizations, it was confirmed that this novel cathode (P-MVO) exhibited Zn²⁺/H⁺ dual carriers insertion mechanism. The as-prepared cathode yields a high specific capacity of 412 mAh g⁻¹ at 0.3 A g⁻¹, and it preserves a 286 mAh g⁻¹ capacity even at 5 A g⁻¹. Moreover, Zn//P-MVO batteries exhibit better electrochemical stability at a wide temperature range. This work enriches the organic-inorganic hybrid chemistry and provides a promising strategy for developing organic-inorganic hybrid cathode materials targeting AZIBs.

Keywords

Aqueous zinc-ion battery / Polyoxovanadate / Organic-inorganic composite cathode / Amorphous material / Dual-ion storage

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Yingxue Wang: Writing – original draft, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation. Hongyuan Shen: Formal analysis, Data curation. Kun Li: Formal analysis, Data curation. Jikun Li: Writing – review & editing, Resources, Methodology, Formal analysis, Data curation. Xinjie Jiang: Formal analysis, Data curation. Kai Yang: Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Project administration, Methodology, Investigation, Funding acquisition, Conceptualization.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22375116, 22001057), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2024QB124, ZR2025QB32, ZR2024QB112).

Supplementary materials

Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.chphma.2026.03.002.

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