Research Area

Zinc Batteries

Attributed as the first practical battery developed, Zinc batteries have the known benefits of low material cost, non-toxicity, and a high theoretical energy density. Zinc-based batteries are commercially implemented in the medical and stretchable electronics industry and have great promise in grid storage. In our lab, we focus on high throughput, printable, low cost, and energy dense batteries with superior power densities when powering Bluetooth and wireless devices. Shown below from our group’s recent publication, with our all-printed and stacked configuration, our Zinc-based batteries show superior areal capacities and can handle higher current densities than reported in literature. These performances are best illustrated from the images and video below in which our printed Zinc batteries power the high current pulse required of a Bluetooth enabled flexible display.

The development of this high-performance battery is largely due to our arsenal of advance characterization techniques that allow us to recognize failure modes and optimize our materials design. Shown below is an example of how micro-scale X-ray Computed Tomography (micro-CT), used in our work, can shed light on our battery’s structure, in which each layer can be non-destructively probed to obtain 3D reconstructions. Future work will showcase improved performances through our advance characterization and will shed light on how such techniques can aid the battery community for the future of high performance and low-cost batteries.

Highlighted Publications:

1. L. Yin, J. Scharf, J. Ma, J. Doux, C. Redquest, V. L. Le, Y. Yin, J. Ortega, X. Wei, J. Wang and Y. S. Meng, “High Performance Printed AgO-Zn Rechargeable Battery for Flexible Electronics“, Joule, 2020, 5, 1-21 [Video content: YouTube Link]

2. R. Kumar, J. Shin, L. Yin, J.-M. You, Y. S. Meng, Joseph J Wang, “All-Printed, Stretchable Zn-Ag2O Rechargeable Battery via, Hyperelastic Binder for Self-Powering Wearable Electronics“, Adv. Energy Materials, 2017, 1602096

3. A. Bandodkar, W. Jia, J. Ramirez, Y. S. Meng and J. Wang, “An epidermal alkaline rechargeable Ag-Zn printable tattoo battery for wearable electronics”, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2014, 2(38), 15788

4. J.W. Shin, J.-M. You, J. Z. Lee, R. Kumar, L. Yin, J. Wang, and Y. S. Meng,”Deposition of ZnO on bismuth species towards a rechargeable Zn-based aqueous battery” , Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2016, 18, 26376 (Front Cover)