Carbon Foam-Supported VS₂ Cathode for High-Performance Flexible Self-Healing Quasi-Solid-State Zinc-Ion Batteries

As the new generation of energy storage systems, the flexible battery can effectively broaden the application area and scope of energy storage devices. Flexibility and energy density are the two core evaluation parameters for the flexible battery. In this work, a flexible VS₂ material (VS₂ @CF) is fabricated by growing the VS₂ nanosheet arrays on carbon foam (CF) using a simple hydrothermal method. Benefiting from the high electric conductivity and 3D foam structure, VS₂ @CF shows an excellent rate capability (172.8 mAh g^-1 at 5 A g^-1 ) and cycling performance (130.2 mAh g^-1 at 1 A g^-1 after 1000 cycles) when it served as cathode material for aqueous zinc-ion batteries. More importantly, the quasi-solid-state battery VS₂ @CF//Zn@CF assembled by the VS₂ @CF cathode, CF-supported Zn anode, and a self-healing gel electrolyte also exhibits excellent rate capability (261.5 and 149.8 mAh g^-1 at 0.2 and 5 A g^-1 , respectively) and cycle performance with a capacity of 126.6 mAh g^-1 after 100 cycles at 1 A g^-1 . Moreover, the VS₂ @CF//Zn@CF full cell also shows good flexible and self-healing properties, which can be charged and discharged normally under different bending angles and after being destroyed and then self-healing.