Boosting aqueous zinc-ion storage by synergistically coupling sodium manganese oxides with MXene nanosheets

Aqueous zinc ion batteries (ZIBs) are regarded as a promising battery mainly due to their high safety and environmental friendliness, but suffer from low capacity and energy density. Herein, a pre-intercalated manganese oxide (Na0.55Mn2O4·1.5 H2O)/MXene hybrid (NMO/MXene) is successfully proposed for high-performance ZIBs, in which synergistic effect between MXene and NMO greatly improves the structural stability of NMO and facilitates fast charge transfer and ion diffusion kinetics. Therefore, the resulting NMO/MXene cathodes deliver high-rate capacity of 180 mAh g−1 at 10 C (3.08 A g−1) and long cycling life over 2500 times at 5 C, outperforming most reported Mn-base cathodes. The MXene-mediated strategy for advanced Mn-based cathodes developed here paves a new way to construct high-performance Zn-MnO2 batteries.