Flexible Hybrid Zn–Ag/Air Battery with Long Cycle Life

A battery with high energy density, large capacity, long cyclability, safety, and flexibility is desired to not only power small electronic devices but also provide solutions to large-scale energy storage management. In this work, a hybrid battery of Zn–Ag and Zn–air (Zn–Ag/air) has been successfully fabricated in which Ag acted as an active material at the charging state and as an oxygen reduction reaction catalyst at the discharging state. In traditional zinc air batteries, Ag was used as a catalytic material only. In this work, sufficient amounts of Ag nanoparticles were covered onto stainless steel wire screen via a facile electrodeposition procedure as not only catalytic materials but also active redox materials. The rigid hybrid battery delivered two discharging plateaus at 1.5 and 1.1 V in which the higher one was attributed to reduction of Ag2O to Ag and the lower one resulted from Ag-assisted oxygen reduction reaction. The cyclability test showed that the Coulombic efficiency retained higher than 85% after 1700 cycles. Furthermore, the Zn–Ag/air hybrid battery was also able to be packed in a pouch cell and demonstrated high flexibility and rechargeable capability. Overall results indicate that the hybrid battery possesses both advantages of Zn–Ag and Zn–air batteries with improved discharging potential and enhanced storage capacity.