Aging-Responsive Phase Transition of VOOH to V10O24·nH2O vs Zn2+ Storage Performance as a Rechargeable Aqueous Zn-Ion Battery Cathode

Vanadium oxyhydroxide has been recently investigated as a starting material to synthesize different phases of vanadium oxides by electrochemical or thermal conversion and has been used as an aqueous zinc-ion battery (AZIB) cathode. However, the low-valent vanadium oxides have poor phase stability under ambient conditions. So far, there is no study on understanding the phase evolution of such low-valent vanadium oxides and their effect on the electrochemical performance toward hosting the Zn2+ ions. The primary goal of the work is to develop a high-performance AZIB cathode, and the highlight of the current work is the insight into the auto-oxidation-induced phase transition of VOOH to V10O24·nH2O under ambient conditions and Zn2+ intercalation behavior thereon as an aqueous zinc-ion battery cathode. Herein, we demonstrate that hydrothermally synthesized VOOH undergoes a phase transition to V10O24·nH2O during both the electrochemical cycling and aerial aging over 38-45 days. However, continued aging till 150 days at room temperature in an open atmosphere exhibited an increased interlayer water content in the V10O24·nH2O, which was associated with a morphological change with different surface area/porosity characteristics and notably reduced charge transfer/diffusion resistance as an aqueous zinc-ion battery cathode. Although the fresh VOOH cathode had impressive specific capacity at rate performance, (326 mAh/g capacity at 0.1 A/g current and 104 mAh/g capacity at 4 A/g current) the cathode suffered from a continuous capacity decay. Interestingly, the aged VOOH electrodes showed gradually decreasing specific capacity with aging at low current and however followed the reverse order at high current. At a comparable specific power of ∼64-66 W/kg, the fresh VOOH and aged VOOH after 60, 120, and 150 days of aging showed the respective energy densities of 208.3, 281.2, 269.2, and 240.6 Wh/kg. Among all the VOOH materials, the 150 day-aged VOOH cathode exhibited the highest energy density at a power density beyond 1000 W/kg. Thanks to the improved kinetics, the 150 day-aged VOOH cathode delivered a considerable energy density of 39.7 Wh/kg with a high specific power of 4466 W/kg. Also, it showed excellent cycling performance with only 0.002% capacity loss per cycle over 20 300 cycles at 10 A/g.