Zinc anode based alkaline energy storage system: Recent progress and future perspectives of zinc–silver battery

Rechargeable zinc-based batteries have come to the forefront of energy storage field with a surprising pace during last decade due to the advantageous safety, abundance and relatively low cost, making them important supplements of lithium-ion batteries. As a significant role in zinc-based batteries, zinc-silver battery owns the advantages of high specific energy density, stable working voltage, high charging efficiency, safety and environmental friendliness, and it has been widely used in military such as in aerospace, deep water manned and civil field such as energy supply for watch and hearing aid. However, it is still suffering from a few drawbacks such as unsatisfactory cycle life, low utilization of the cathode. This review introduces the basic principles of zinc-silver batteries and elaborates the battery configurations aiming to understand its working mechanisms as well as the related issues. Most importantly, the very recent research updates and the concerns have arisen in the development are summarized from conventional cell to flexible device and hybrid device. Finally, the challenges and perspectives of zinc-silver batteries are further prospected to give a broad idea to readers new in the area and trigger inspirations for motivated researchers to further widen the utilization of silver-zinc batteries.