Scalable Spray Drying Production of Amorphous V2O5–EGO 2D Heterostructured Xerogels for High‐Rate and High‐Capacity Aqueous Zinc Ion Batteries

• Published in: Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) Vol. 18; no. 10
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yubai, Qin, Jiadong, Batmunkh, Munkhbayar, Li, Wei, Fu, Huaiqin, Wang, Liang, Al‐Mamun, Mohammad, Qi, Dongchen, Liu, Porun, Zhang, Shanqing, Zhong, Yu Lin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Weinheim Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.03.2022
• Subjects: aqueous zinc‐ion batteries; Cathodes; Electrode materials; Energy storage; Graphene; graphene oxide; Heterostructures; Lithium; Materials processing; Nanotechnology; Rechargeable batteries; Spray drying; Storage batteries; vanadium oxides; Vanadium pentoxide; Xerogels
• ISSN: 1613-6810; 1613-6829
• DOI: 10.1002/smll.202105761

Rechargeable aqueous zinc‐ion batteries (ZIBs) are promising in stationary grid energy storage due to their advantages in safety and cost‐effectiveness, and the search for competent cathode materials is one core task in the development of ZIBs. Herein, the authors design a 2D heterostructure combining amorphous vanadium pentoxide and electrochemically produced graphene oxide (EGO) using a fast and scalable spray drying technique. The unique 2D heterostructured xerogel is achieved by controlling the concentration of EGO in the precursor solution. Driven by the improved electrochemical kinetics, the resultant xerogel can deliver an excellent rate capability (334 mAh g−1 at 5 A g−1) as well as a high specific capacity (462 mAh g−1 at 0.2 A g−1) as the cathode material in ZIB. It is also shown that the coin cell constructed based on spray‐dried xerogel can output steady, high energy densities over a broad power density window. This work provides a scalable and cost‐effective approach for making high performance electrode materials from cheap sources through existing industrialized materials processing. The authors make use of a rapid spray drying technique to produce a 2D heterostructure consisting of amorphous vanadium pentoxide and electrochemically produced graphene oxide (EGO) for high performance cathodes of aqueous zinc‐ion batteries. The control of the concentration of EGO in the precursor solution is demonstrated as a key factor in constructing such a 2D heterostructure.