Zeng Siqi, Ao Zhuoran, Han Caihong, Lin Xiaolong, Chen Shuang, Xiao Xinle, Yan Lijing, Zhang Shanqing, Lin Zhan
School of Chemical Engineering and Light Industry, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.
Anhui Engineering Research Center of Highly Reactive Micro-Nano Powders, Research Center for Low-Carbon Energy and Chemical Separation & Regeneration Technology, School of Materials and Environmental Engineering, Chizhou University, Chizhou 247000, China.
J Colloid Interface Sci. 2025 Dec 15;700(Pt 2):138427. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2025.138427. Epub 2025 Jul 12.
Aqueous zinc iodine batteries (AZIBs) offer significant advantages in safety and cost, making them promising candidates for large-scale energy storage. However, the polyiodide shuttle effect impedes their commercialization process, especially when facing high areal capacity conditions (>3 mAh cm). Designing advanced multifunctional binders emerges as an urgent and efficient tactic to address polyiodide shuttling and sustain the structural integrity and ionic conduction of thick electrodes simultaneously. This work reports a commercially available water-soluble binder with high ionic conductivity and moderate viscosity, polyethylene oxide with a molecular weight of 300,000 (PEO-30), which can chemically adsorb and immobilize iodine species by forming charge-transfer complexes with high electrical conductivity, thereby suppressing the polyiodide shuttling and enhancing reaction kinetics. As a result, the PEO-30 binder-based AZIBs achieve a specific capacity of 208.6 mAh g at 1C under a high mass loading of ∼8.0 mg cm, and maintain an average coulombic efficiency of 99.86% over 3000 cycles. An ultra-stable cycling life is obtained with the capacity retention of 93.81% after 33,000 cycles at 20 C, demonstrating the effectiveness of PEO in immobilizing iodine species and facilitating rate performance of the thick electrodes. The non-toxic and non-irritating nature of the PEO binder provides a new pathway for the practical application of green, low-cost, and practical AZIBs.
水系锌碘电池（AZIBs）在安全性和成本方面具有显著优势，使其成为大规模储能的有潜力的候选者。然而，多碘化物穿梭效应阻碍了它们的商业化进程，尤其是在面对高面积容量条件（>3 mAh cm）时。设计先进的多功能粘结剂成为解决多碘化物穿梭问题并同时维持厚电极的结构完整性和离子传导性的紧迫且有效的策略。这项工作报道了一种具有高离子电导率和适度粘度的市售水溶性粘结剂，分子量为300,000的聚环氧乙烷（PEO-30），它可以通过形成具有高电导率的电荷转移络合物来化学吸附和固定碘物种，从而抑制多碘化物穿梭并增强反应动力学。结果，基于PEO-30粘结剂的AZIBs在1C下、约8.0 mg cm的高质量负载下实现了208.6 mAh g的比容量，并在3000次循环中保持平均库仑效率为99.86%。在20℃下经过33,000次循环后，容量保持率为93.81%，获得了超稳定的循环寿命，证明了PEO在固定碘物种和促进厚电极倍率性能方面的有效性。PEO粘结剂的无毒无刺激性为绿色、低成本且实用的AZIBs的实际应用提供了一条新途径。
