Regulating Zinc Storage Behaviors of Tunnel Structure Cathodes Via Tungsten Induction

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries have received continuous interests because of applying low-cost and eco-friendly aqueous electrolytes and having high safety. Beyond energetically to explore new-type cathode materials, it is of great significance to regulate the zinc storage behavior of the existing cathodes in order to understand the underlying working mechanism. Therefore, as a proof of concept, this work achieves the regulation of zinc storage behaviors of the tunnel structure tunnel structure B-phase vanadium dioxide (VO₂ (B)) and vanadium oxide (V₆ O₁₃ ) cathodes via a simple chemical tungsten-doping induction approach. Under low-concentration tungsten-doping induction of 1, 2 and 3 at.%, the tunnel sizes of VO₂ (B) can be controlled readily. Moreover, the V₆ O₁₃ with large size tunnels can be achieved by medium-concentration tungsten induction of 6 and 9 at.%. It is demonstrated that tungsten induced VO₂ (B) can achieve zinc storage without lattice structure change via operando X-ray diffraction analyses. Remarkably, via operando and non-operando analyses, tungsten induced V₆ O₁₃ with lager size tunnels can realize the oriented 1D zinc ion intercalation/deintercalation. The further kinetics analysis shows that the zinc storage is mainly diffusion control, which is different from most of vanadium-based cathodes with capacitance control. This viable tungsten-doping induction strategy provides a new insight into achieving the controllable regulation of zinc storage behaviors.