Recently, the research team led by Professor Xiao Zhubing from Henan Key Laboratory of Photovoltaic Materials made significant progress in flexible potassium-ion batteries. The title is “Self-Regulation of Spin Polarization Density Propelling the Ion Diffusion Kinetics for Flexible Potassium-Ion Batteries”, which was published the internationally renowned academic journal Advanced Functional Materials (impact foctor:19.924).
Potassium-ion batteries (PIBs) are eliciting intensive research interest in large-scale energy storage applications because of the favorable standard redox potential of K+/K and abundance. However, safety concern associated with the highly reactive potassium metal has raised urgent requirement to search suitable anode materials as potassium ion host. The research team prepared a V2C-VO2 nanoribbon intertwined nanosheet 3D multi-heterostructure with rich heterointerface and heterojunction via a facile solution-based method for realizing a highly flexible and robust anode material of PIBs. With the combination of spectroscopic results and systematical theoretical studies using density functional theory (DFT) and diffusion quantum Monte Carlo (DQMC) methods, we confirmed that the V2C-VO2 multi-heterostructure is capable of realizing self-regulation of spin polarization density of constituent individual V2C and VO2, which significantly propels the K+ ion diffusion kinetics during charge/discharge processes. More importantly, the flexible full cells exhibit considerable capacities and remarkable cycling performance even after harsh bending and folding, showcasing the potential of V2C-VO2 multi-heterostructure for flexible and wearable electronics.
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Scientific Research Foundation for “Special Support Program for Exceptional Talents” of Henan University, Key Scientific Research Projects of Higher Education in Henan Province, Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province, Postdoctoral Foundation of Henan Province. Henan Key Laboratory of Photovoltaic Materials, Henan University as the only communication unit for the paper. The first author of the paper was Xu meng yao, master student of 2019. Professor Xiao Zhubing was the corresponding author.
Article links: https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202203263