Temperature adaptability issue of aqueous rechargeable batteries

Aqueous rechargeable batteries (ARBs) have received widespread attention and made great progress due to their intrinsic safety, facile assembly, and low cost. However, ARBs have high sensitivity to temperature, which seriously hinders their practical applications. At low temperature, the solvent water freeze and the ionic conductivity of aqueous electrolytes are greatly reduced. At high temperature, the gas bubbling and gas expansion arise by fast evaporation of solvent water, and electrode materials corrosion and dissolution also appear. Achieving all-temperature ARBs is of great significance for their future development and application. Herein, recent advances regarding the performances of ARBs at different temperature are systematically summarized, focusing on temperature effects on the battery performance and their mechanisms from two aspects: low temperature and high temperature. Moreover, the possibility of using flame-resistant/non-flammable materials in ARBs to achieve absolute safety performance is summarized. Finally, the existing challenges and future prospect are forecasted. It is hoped that this article will be of great value to the further development and practical applications of ARBs. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Aqueous rechargeable batteries (ARBs) have shown high sensitivity to temperature, affecting their ionic conductivity at low temperature and causing gas expansion and electrode material corrosion at high temperature. To achieve all-temperature performance, challenges need to be addressed and the possibility of using flame-resistant/non-flammable materials explored.