Fu Jing, Liang Ruilin, Liu Guihua, Yu Aiping, Bai Zhenyu, Yang Lin, Chen Zhongwei
Department of Chemical Engineering, Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology, Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada.
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Green Chemical Media and Reactions, Ministry of Education, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, 453007, China.
Adv Mater. 2019 Aug;31(31):e1805230. doi: 10.1002/adma.201805230. Epub 2018 Dec 9.
Over the past decade, the surging interest for higher-energy-density, cheaper, and safer battery technology has spurred tremendous research efforts in the development of improved rechargeable zinc-air batteries. Current zinc-air batteries suffer from poor energy efficiency and cycle life, owing mainly to the poor rechargeability of zinc and air electrodes. To achieve high utilization and cyclability in the zinc anode, construction of conductive porous framework through elegant optimization strategies and adaptation of alternate active material are employed. Equally, there is a need to design new and improved bifunctional oxygen catalysts with high activity and stability to increase battery energy efficiency and lifetime. Efforts to engineer catalyst materials to increase the reactivity and/or number of bifunctional active sites are effective for improving air electrode performance. Here, recent key advances in material development for rechargeable zinc-air batteries are described. By improving fundamental understanding of materials properties relevant to the rechargeable zinc and air electrodes, zinc-air batteries will be able to make a significant impact on the future energy storage for electric vehicle application. To conclude, a brief discussion on noteworthy concepts of advanced electrode and electrolyte systems that are beyond the current state-of-the-art zinc-air battery chemistry, is presented.
在过去十年中，人们对更高能量密度、更便宜且更安全的电池技术的兴趣激增，这推动了在改进的可充电锌空气电池开发方面的巨大研究努力。目前的锌空气电池存在能量效率低和循环寿命短的问题，主要原因是锌电极和空气电极的可充电性差。为了在锌阳极中实现高利用率和循环性，人们采用了通过精细优化策略构建导电多孔框架以及采用替代活性材料的方法。同样，需要设计新型且改进的具有高活性和稳定性的双功能氧催化剂，以提高电池的能量效率和寿命。对催化剂材料进行工程设计以增加双功能活性位点的反应性和/或数量，对于改善空气电极性能是有效的。在此，描述了可充电锌空气电池材料开发方面的近期关键进展。通过增进对与可充电锌电极和空气电极相关的材料特性的基本理解，锌空气电池将能够对未来电动汽车应用的能量存储产生重大影响。最后，对超出当前最先进锌空气电池化学范畴的先进电极和电解质系统的值得关注的概念进行了简要讨论。
