Building aqueous acidic batteries is in its infancy. There are several sporadic attempts that show desirable electrochemical performance, especially rate stability and high power density. The direct use of a metal anode is regarded as the best protocol for fabricating metal-based batteries. However, introducing an acid-tolerant and electrochemically reversible metal anode into an acidic aqueous battery system remains a considerable challenge. In this work, copper (Cu) metal is used as a reversible metal anode to match acidic regimes with a nearly 100% deposition-dissolution efficiency. The reaction kinetics and mechanism of the Cu anode can be regulated by protons with 400% kinetic acceleration compared with a mild electrolyte. In addition, the anode exhibits a dendrite-free morphology after cycling due to the surface roughening effect, which is different from the morphologies of widely used Zn- and Li-metal anodes. When coupled with the Prussian blue analog as cathodes, the battery delivers ultrafast kinetics of 1830 W kg-1 at 75 C, which is comparable to the power performance of supercapacitors. Long-term cyclic stability is evaluated, where the capacity retention is 85.6% after 5000 cycles. Finally, flexible fiber-shaped acidic Cu-based batteries are demonstrated for potential wearable applications.
Keywords: Cu-anode; acidic battery; dendrite-free property; proton-regulated kinetics.
© 2019 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.