Effectively Modulating Oxygen Vacancies in Flower‑Likeδ‑MnO_(2)Nanostructures for Large Capacity and High‑Rate Zinc‑Ion Storage

In recent years,manganese-based oxides as an advanced class of cathode materials for zinc-ion batteries(ZIBs)have attracted a great deal of attentions from numerous researchers.However,their slow reaction kinetics,limited active sites and poor electrical conductivity inevitably give rise to the severe performance degradation.To solve these problems,herein,we introduce abundant oxygen vacancies into the flower-likeδ-MnO_(2)nanostructure and effectively modulate the vacancy defects to reach the optimal level(δ-MnO_(2)-x-2.0).The smart design intrinsically tunes the electronic structure,guarantees ion chemisorption-desorption equilibrium and increases the electroactive sites,which not only effectively accelerates charge transfer rate during reaction processes,but also endows more redox reactions,as verified by first-principle calculations.These merits can help the fabricatedδ-MnO_(2)-x-2.0 cathode to present a large specific capacity of 551.8 mAh g^(-1) at 0.5 A g^(-1),high-rate capability of 262.2 mAh g^(-1) at 10 A g^(-1) and an excellent cycle lifespan(83%of capacity retention after 1500 cycles),which is far superior to those of the other metal compound cathodes.In addition,the charge/discharge mechanism of theδ-MnO_(2)-x-2.0 cathode has also been elaborated through ex situ techniques.This work opens up a new pathway for constructing the next-generation high-performance ZIBs cathode materials.

Modulation of lattice oxygen boosts the electrochemical activity and stability of Co-free Li-rich cathodes

Co-free Li-rich layered oxide cathodes have drawn much attention owing to their low cost and high energy density.Nevertheless,anion oxidation of oxygen leads to oxygen peroxidation during the first charging process,which leads to co-migration of transition metal ions and oxygen vacancies,causing structural instability.In this work,we propose a pre-activation strategy driven by chemical impregnation to modulate the chemical state of surface lattice oxygen,thus regulating the structural and electrochemical properties of the cathodes.In-situ X-ray diffraction confirms that materials based on activated oxygen configuration have higher structural stability.More importantly,this novel efficient strategy endows the cathodes having a lower surface charge transfer barrier and higher Li+transfer kinetics characteristic and ameliorates its inherent issues.The optimized cathode exhibits excellent electrochemical performance:after 300 cycles,high capacity(from 238 m Ah g^(-1)to 193 m Ah g^(-1)at 1 C)and low voltage attenuation(168 mV)are obtained.Overall,this modulated surface lattice oxygen strategy improves the electrochemical activity and structural stability,providing an innovative idea to obtain high-capacity Co-free Li-rich cathodes for next-generation Li-ion batteries.