Recently, the research team led by Professor Wu Jingyi at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, in collaboration with Professor Guihua Yu from the University of Texas at Austin, has achieved new breakthroughs in next-generation secondary battery research. Their findings have been published in Nature Communications and Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
The team first revealed that chloride-induced pitting corrosion triggers anode degradation and exacerbates dendrite growth, leading to rapid battery failure. They further proposed a charge gradient interface strategy to regulate ion transport at the interface. This approach suppresses chloride accumulation on the zinc anode surface while accelerating zinc ion diffusion, enabling uniform zinc deposition, mitigating corrosion/side reactions, and extending anode lifespan by 40-fold. Seawater-based full zinc-ion batteries achieved a 5 mAh cm⁻² areal capacity with stable operation over 500 cycles. This study has provided actionable guidelines for stabilizing zinc anodes in seawater electrolytes and constructing sustainable marine energy storage systems. The research outcome titled All-natural charge gradient interface for sustainable seawater zinc batteries was published in Nature Communications.
Unlike liquid electrolytes that fully permeate electrodes, solid-state electrodes exhibit sluggish ion transport due to low-flux solid-phase diffusion, resulting in inferior energy density (electrode loading) and power density (charging rates) compared to liquid batteries. To overcome kinetic limitations, the team designed a gradient electrode structure with low-tortuosity to enhance ion transport efficiency and balance ion concentration gradients. This innovation enabled fast-charging capabilities in practical electrodes, achieving a 3.3 mAh cm⁻² areal capacity at 3C current density under room temperature. This breakthrough has paved the way for developing high-energy/power-density solid-state batteries. The study, titled Gradient Design with Low-tortuosity Overcoming Kinetic Limitations in High-Loading Solid-State Cathodes, was published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
