Boosted Charge Transfer in Twinborn α-(Mn2O3-MnO2) Heterostructures: Toward High Rate and Ultralong Life Zinc-ion Batteries.

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) are one of the most promising next generation rechargeable batteries, due to the high capacity, high hydrogen evolution overpotential and chemically stable reversible plating/stripping of zinc electrode in the mild aqueous electrolyte, however, there are limited cathode materials that can store Zn2+ reversibly with superior cycling and rate capability. Herein, hierarchically porous nanorods composed of twinborn α-(Mn2O3-MnO2) heterostructures are proposed as a robust cathode for Zn storage. Thanks to the hierarchically porous nanorod morphology and the abundant interface of the heterostructures involving built-in electric field, the as-obtained twinborn α-(Mn2O3-MnO2) electrode delivers a high capacity of 170 mAh g-1 for 2000 cycles at 500 mA g-1 and shows an excellent rate capability up to 1.5 A g-1 with capacity of 124 mAh g-1. The inspiring results achieved exhibit the enormous potential of high-performance heterostructures cathode for fast and stable Zn-ion batteries.