“Soft Shorts” Hidden in Zinc Metal Anode Research

Qing Li is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at City University of Hong Kong, under the supervision of Professor Chunyi Zhi. Her current research mainly focuses on advanced flexible aqueous zinc-ion batteries and the design of advanced metallic anode. Qing obtained her bachelor's degree in engineering from Central South University in 2014 and received her dual master's degree in engineering from Tsinghua University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2017. She has worked in the battery industry from 2017 to 2019 before joining Prof. Zhi's group. Ao Chen is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at City University of Hong Kong, under the supervision of Professor Chunyi Zhi. His research mainly focuses on flexible lithium-ion batteries, high-voltage zinc batteries, and lithium–sulfur batteries. Donghong Wang is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Hong Kong Centre for Cerebro-Cardiovascular Health Engineering under the supervision of Prof. Chunyi Zhi. She received her PhD and master's degree from City University of Hong Kong and University of Science and Technology of China, respectively. Her research mainly focuses on high-performance aqueous multivalence batteries and flexible aqueous multivalence battery devices. Zengxia Pei received his Ph.D. from City University of Hong Kong in 2017. He currently works as an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on the design and development of nanomaterials for sustainable energy conversion and storage in fields including aqueous batteries/capacitors, electrocatalysis, and functional polyelectrolytes. He was recognized as one of the Australian Research Top Rising Stars in 2019-2021, a JMCA Emerging Investigator in 2021, and a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher (cross-field) in 2020 and 2021. Chunyi Zhi obtained B.S. degree in Physics at Shandong University and Ph.D. degree in condensed matter physics at Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. After two years' postdoc at National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) in Japan, he was promoted to be ICYS researcher, researcher (faculty) and senior researcher (permanent position) in NIMS. Dr. Zhi is now a professor in MSE, City University of Hong Kong. Dr. Zhi has extensive experiences in flexible energy storage, aqueous electrolyte batteries, and zinc ion batteries. He has published more than 400 papers and been granted more than 80 patents.