Realization restrain vanadium dissolution in aqueous zinc-ion batteries with amphoteric ionic polyacrylamide gel electrolyte

Layered vanadium-based materials (VBMs) cathode has attracted enormous interest as a prospective candidate for aqueous zinc ion batteries (AZIBs). Whereas, the issues induced by dissolution of VBMs to electrolyte restrict the long cycle life of AZIBs. Herein, a polyacrylamide system’s gel electrolyte, poly acrylamide and 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid containing Zn2+ (referred as ZnPAM-AMPS) is synthesized by thermal polymerization. As-prepared gel electrolyte exhibits a high ionic conductivity of 10.7 mS cm−1, and high electrochemical stability window to 1.6 V. What’s more, the ZnPAM-AMPS enables Zn plating/stripping over 1900 h at 0.1 mA cm−2. The dissolution of VBMs was effectively suppressed by the low free water content of ZnPAM-AMPS, a dissolvable Zn/(NH4)2V4O9 cathode assembled battery with ZnPAM-AMPS demonstrate outstanding cycle life, which provides the innovative design for high performance AZIBs.