The group of CHEN Liquan at Qingdao Industrial Energy Storage Research Institute (QIESRI), a division of CAS QIBEBT, has discovered that highly concentrated aqueous electrolytes can optimize the Zn stripping/deposition processes and have proposed a smart cooling-recovery function by using a thermoreversible hydrogel as the functional electrolyte, which can repair the interfacial failure during cycling. These new types of Zn batteries exhibit high safety, energy density up to 40 Wh/kg, cycling life up to 500 times and cost less than 0.7 ￥/Wh. In addition, novel boron-centered, anion-based Mg-ion electrolytes characterized by high ionic conductivity, non-nucleophilicity, and a wide electrochemical window, provided potential benefits and new research directions for future low-cost secondary Mg batteries. 

CAS news release, October 27, 2017