Trifunctional Rb+-Intercalation Enhancing the Electrochemical Cyclability of Ammonium Vanadate Cathode for Aqueous Zinc Ion Batteries

Rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) have been highly desired due to their low cost, intrinsic safety, environmental friendliness, and great potential in large-scale power storage systems. However, their practical applications are impeded by unstable long-term electrochemical performances induced by microstructure degradation of the cathode material, hydrogen evolution reaction in the electrolyte, and dendritic growth on the zinc anode upon cycling. In this work, rubidium cations (Rb+) are introduced to synthesize an Rb+-preintercalated NH4V4O10 (NVO-Rb) composite. The contribution of Rb+ ions as pillars in V–O interlayers to facilitating Zn2+ storage is investigated first, and then the influences of partial Rb+ ions from the NVO-Rb cathode on the aqueous electrolyte and zinc anode are specially inspected from different viewpoints. Based on a series of characterization results, it is comprehensively elucidated that the partial Rb+ ions into the electrolyte suppress the generation of byproducts on the cathode and regulate the dendrite growth on the zinc anode, thus effectively promoting the long-term electrochemical performances of NVO-based AZIBs. The assembled Zn∥Zn(CF3SO3)2∥NVO-Rb cell can exhibit a high specific capacity and optimized Zn2+ diffusion kinetics, especially an improved electrochemical cyclability with a capacity retention of 87.6% at 5 A g–1 over 10000 cycles. This study enlightens the multiple roles of cation-preintercalation in the layered structure material and provides a feasible strategy for the development of high-performance aqueous batteries.