Centrifugal Jet-Spun, Non-Woven Chitin Fiber Separator for High-Performance Aqueous Zinc-Ion Batteries

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Although lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are key prevailing energy storage devices, alternative battery technologies based on earth-abundant materials are being sought as a viable energy storage systems that could possibly replace LIBs. Among several alternatives is aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs), which are more eco-friendly, cost-effective, and even safer. Despite their potential advantages, the development of appropriate separators for ZIBs has been elusive, and the issue of zinc metal dendrites on the negative electrode remains a critical challenge. In this work, we introduces a novel approach to prepare a non-woven spun fiber mat made of chitin, an abundant natural polymer, which could function as a separator for AZIBs. In particular, we use centrifugal jet-spinning (CJS) to fabricate the chitin separator. The use of chitin as a separator offers several advantages over existing ZIB separators, such as high stability, improved capacity, environmental friendliness, and cost-effectiveness. We demonstrate that the chitin separator can be applied in AZIB cells based on symmetric and full cell models, which showed stable cell operation for long-term cycling.