Reversible Aqueous Zinc-CO2 Batteries Based on CO2 -HCOOH Interconversion

Jiafang Xie; Xueyuan Wang; Jiangquan Lv; Yiyin Huang; Maoxiang Wu; Yaobing Wang; Jiannian Yao

doi:10.1002/anie.201811853

Reversible Aqueous Zinc-CO₂ Batteries Based on CO₂ -HCOOH Interconversion

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2018 Dec 21;57(52):16996-17001. doi: 10.1002/anie.201811853. Epub 2018 Nov 20.

Authors

Jiafang Xie¹, Xueyuan Wang¹, Jiangquan Lv¹, Yiyin Huang¹, Maoxiang Wu¹, Yaobing Wang¹, Jiannian Yao²

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Design and Assembly of Functional Nanostructures, and Fujian Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, YangQiao West Road 155#, Fuzhou, P. R. China.
² Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (BNLMS), Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.

PMID: 30378220
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201811853

Abstract

As a promising technique for CO₂ fixation/utilization and energy conversion/storage, the metal-CO₂ battery has been studied to improve its interconversion between CO₂ and carbonates/oxalates. Herein, we propose and realize a reversible aqueous Zn-CO₂ battery based on the reversible conversion between CO₂ and liquid HCOOH on a bifunctional Pd cathode. The 3D porous Pd interconnected nanosheet with enriched edge and pore structure, has a highly electrochemical active surface to facilitate simultaneous selective CO₂ reduction and HCOOH oxidation at low overpotentials. The resulting battery has a 1 V charge voltage, a cycling durability over 100 cycles, and a high energy efficiency of 81.2 %. The battery mechanism is proposed as Zn+CO₂ +2 H⁺ +2 OH^- ↔ ZnO+HCOOH+H₂ O, through which the reversible conversion between CO₂ and liquid HCOOH was realized.

Keywords: bifunctional cathode; carbon dioxide; electrocatalysis; palladium; zinc-CO2 battery.