Transition metal organic framework materials and their selenides are considered to be one of the most promising cathode materials for nickel-zinc (denoted as Ni-Zn) batteries due to their low cost, environmental friendliness, and controllable microstructure. Yet, their low capacity and poor cycling performance severely restricts their further development. Herein, we developed a simple one-pot hydrothermal process to directly synthesize NiSe2 (denotes as NiSe2-X based on the molar amount of SeO2 added) stacked layered sheets. Benefiting from the peculiar architectures, the fabricated NiSe2-1//Zn battery based on NiSe2 and the Zn plate exhibits a high specific capacity of 231.6 mAh g-1 at 1 A g-1, and excellent rate performance (162.8 mAh g-1 at 10 A g-1). In addition, the NiSe2//Zn battery also presents a satisfactory cycle life at the high current density of 8 A g-1 (almost no decay compared to the initial specific capacity after 1000 cycles). Additionally, the battery device also exhibits a satisfactory energy density of 343.2 Wh kg-1 and a peak power density of 11.7 kW kg-1. This work provides a simple attempt to design a high-performance layered cathode material for aqueous Ni-Zn batteries.
Keywords: Ni-Zn battery; NiSe2; cathode; one-pot synthesis.