Recent Progress on Cathode Materials for Rechargeable Zinc Ion Batteries

Due to their low cost, high capacity, mild assembly and testing conditions, as well as environmentally friendly characteristics, rechargeable zinc ion batteries (RZIBs) have attracted more and more attention. RZIBs have a broad development prospect and may partly replace the traditional batteries in the near future. Tremendous efforts have been devoted to developing various of high-efficient cathode materials for improving comprehensive performances of RZIBs. However, many problems such as poor electron/ion conductivity, weak structural stability and complex energy storage mechanisms still exist in current cathode materials which hinder the practical application of RZIBs. This paper presents a timely review on recent progresses and challenges in cathode materials for RZIBs. We summarize various types of reported cathode materials for RZIBs, compare their electrochemical performances and investigate their probable working mechanisms with the association of computational chemistry. Moreover, the existing problems and expected development directions of these materials are further discussed. Mechanism studies of cathode materials for rechargeable zinc ion batteries (RZIBs) are elaborated associating with computational chemistry, and the problems of reported cathode materials are explored. Compare with pure inorganic materials and pure organic materials, inorganic-organic composite cathode materials can improve the specific capacitances and enhance the cycling stability of RZIBs. image