Defect engineering on V₂O₃ cathode for long-cycling aqueous zinc metal batteries

Defect engineering is a strategy that is attracting widespread attention for the possibility of modifying battery active materials in order to improve the cycling stability of the electrodes. However, accurate investigation and quantification of the effect of the defects on the electrochemical energy storage performance of the cell are not trivial tasks. Herein, we report the quantification of vanadium-defective clusters (i.e., up to 5.7%) in the V₂O₃ lattice via neutron and X-ray powder diffraction measurements, positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy, and synchrotron-based X-ray analysis. When the vanadium-defective V₂O₃ is employed as cathode active material in an aqueous Zn coin cell configuration, capacity retention of about 81% after 30,000 cycles at 5 A g^-1 is achieved. Density functional theory calculations indicate that the vanadium-defective clusters can provide favorable sites for reversible Zn-ion storage. Moreover, the vanadium-defective clusters allow the storage of Zn ions in V₂O₃, which reduces the electrostatic interaction between the host material and the multivalent ions.