Issue 4, 2018

An extremely safe and wearable solid-state zinc ion battery based on a hierarchical structured polymer electrolyte

Abstract

Flexible and safe batteries, coupled with high performance and low cost, constitute a radical advance in portable and wearable electronics, especially considering the fact that these flexible devices are likely to experience more mechanical impacts and potential damage than well-protected rigid batteries. However, flexible lithium ion batteries (LIBs) are vastly limited by their intrinsic safety and cost issues. Here we introduce an extremely safe and wearable solid-state zinc ion battery (ZIB) comprising a novel gelatin and PAM based hierarchical polymer electrolyte (HPE) and an α-MnO2 nanorod/carbon nanotube (CNT) cathode. Benefiting from the well-designed electrolyte and electrodes, the flexible solid-state ZIB delivers a high areal energy density and power density (6.18 mW h cm−2 and 148.2 mW cm−2, respectively), high specific capacity (306 mA h g−1) and excellent cycling stability (97% capacity retention after 1000 cycles at 2772 mA g−1). More importantly, the solid-state ZIB offers a high wearability and an extreme safety performance over conventional flexible LIBs, and performs very well under various severe conditions, such as being greatly cut, bent, hammered, punctured, sewed, washed in water or even put on fire. In addition, flexible ZIBs were integrated in series to power a commercial smart watch, a wearable pulse sensor, and a smart insole, which has been achieved to the best of our knowledge for the first time. These results demonstrate the promising potential of ZIBs in many practical wearable applications and offer a new platform for flexible and wearable energy storage technologies.

Graphical abstract: An extremely safe and wearable solid-state zinc ion battery based on a hierarchical structured polymer electrolyte

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
13 Nov 2017
Accepted
07 Feb 2018
First published
12 Feb 2018

Energy Environ. Sci., 2018,11, 941-951

An extremely safe and wearable solid-state zinc ion battery based on a hierarchical structured polymer electrolyte

H. Li, C. Han, Y. Huang, Y. Huang, M. Zhu, Z. Pei, Q. Xue, Z. Wang, Z. Liu, Z. Tang, Y. Wang, F. Kang, B. Li and C. Zhi, Energy Environ. Sci., 2018, 11, 941 DOI: 10.1039/C7EE03232C

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