Preparation of polyaniline intercalated V2O5 composites and study of their self-charging mechanism

Vanadium oxides are an important aqueous zinc ion battery cathode material with the advantage of abundant reserves and high specific capacity. However, the strong interaction between the zinc ions and the main lattice of the material results in poor cycling stability and multiplicative performance of the cell. In this paper, we propose a molecular pre-embedding modification strategy for in situ intercalation of polyaniline. Flower cluster-like organic-inorganic (PANI-V2O5, PVO) hybrid materials with adjustable layer spacing were synthesized by simultaneous oxidative polymerization using vanadate and aniline as precursors without the introduction of inactive cations. PVO-60 exhibits a large specific capacity (391.1 mAh·g−1 at a current density of 0.2 A·g−1). The results of density flooding calculations demonstrate that the polyaniline layer blocks the electrostatic interaction between Zn2+ and the V2O5 backbone, thus promoting Zn2+ kinetics. Drawing on the air battery structure, a battery device that allows for air self-charging was designed using PVO-60 as the positive electrode. This work not only provides ideas for the design of vanadium oxides, but also offers the prospect of broadening the application of zinc ion batteries.