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Updated: Jan 22, 2026

Zinc-Sponge Battery Electrodes that Suppress Dendrites
Published on: September 29, 2020
Photoinduced Oxygen Reduction Reaction Boosts the Output Voltage of a Zinc-Air Battery
Dongdong Zhu1, Qiancheng Zhao1, Guilan Fan1
1Key Laboratory of Advanced Energy Materials Chemistry (Ministry of Education), Renewable Energy Conversion and Storage Center (RECAST), College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China.
Abstract:
Utilization of solar energy is of great interest for a sustainable society, and its conversion into electricity in a compact battery is challenging. Herein, a zinc-air battery with the polymer semiconductor polytrithiophene (pTTh) as the cathode is reported for direct conversion of photoenergy into electric energy. Upon irradiation, photoelectrons are generated in the conduction band (CB) of pTTh and then injected into the π2p * orbitals of O2 for its reduction to HO2 - , which is disproportionated to OH- and drives the oxidation of Zn to ZnO at the anode. The discharge voltage was significantly increased to 1.78 V without decay during discharge-charge cycles over 64 h, which corresponds to an energy density increase of 29.0 % as compared to 1.38 V for a zinc-air battery with state-of-the-art Pt/C. The zinc-air battery with an intrinsically different reaction scheme for simultaneous conversion of chemical and photoenergy into electric energy opens a new pathway for utilization of solar energy.
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