A diluent protective organic additive electrolyte of hydrophilic hyperbranched polyester for long-life reversible aqueous zinc manganese oxide batteries

Abstract

A hydrophilic hyperbranched polyester (poly (tetramethylol acetylenediurea (TA)-CO-succinyl chloride) (PTS)) was proposed to be used as an organic additive in aqueous ZnSO₄ electrolyte to achieve a highly reversible zinc/manganese oxide battery. It is found that the zinc symmetric battery based on the 2.0 wt.% PTS/ZnSO₄ electrolyte showed a long cycle stability of more than 2400 h at 1.0 mA·cm⁻², which is much longer than that including the blank ZnSO₄ electrolyte (140 h). Furthermore, the capacity retention of the Zn||MnO₂ full cells employing the 2.0 wt.% PTS/ZnSO₄ electrolyte remained 85% after 100 cycles at 0.2 A·g⁻¹, which is much higher than 20% capacity retention of the cell containing the blank ZnSO₄ electrolyte, and also greater than 59.6% capacity retention of the cell including the 10.0 wt.% TA/ZnSO₄ electrolyte. By using 2.0 wt.% PTS/ZnSO₄ electrolytes, the capacity retention of the Zn||MnO₂ full cells even reached 65% after 2000 cycles at a higher current density of 1.0 A·g⁻¹. It is further demonstrated that the PTS was firmly adsorbed on the zinc anode surface to form a protective layer.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

aqueous zinc-ion battery / hydrophilic branched polyester / Zn anode protection / Zn dendrite / adsorption

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Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express warm thanks to the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 21376282, 21676035, and 21878029). We also thank Chongqing Science and Technology Commission (Grant No. 2022NSCQ-MSX1298). The authors thank the suggestion and discussion from Dr. Xiaolei Ren. The authors thank the warm help from Analytical and Testing Center of Chongqing University.

Electronic supplementary information

Supplementary materials can be found in the online version at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11706-023-0639-7, which include Figs. S1‒S9 and Tables S1‒S6, as well as ¹H-NMR, ¹³C-NMR, and FT-IR spectra of the intermediate and target polymers.

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