Honeycomb ZnO/N/C obtained from cornsilk and ZIF-8 dual induced method for long-life aqueous zinc-ion batteries

Aqueous zinc-ion rechargeable batteries (ZIBs), featured with high safety, low-priced, environmental friendliness, is a developing potential energy storage device. Consider the great potential application of porous structure in ZIBs, in this paper, a ZIF-8 and cornsilk dual induced method is used to construct a stable honeycomb ZnO/N/C cathode material. Due to the excellent porous structure and stability, it displays a superior specific capacity of 172.2 mAh g−1 at 0.3 A g−1 and the energy density reaches up to 112.8 Wh kg−1. The capacity retention is 97.0% after 8000 charging-discharging cycles at 1.0 A g−1, which reveals its durable long-term cycling stability. The outstanding electrochemical properties confirm that the honeycomb ZnO/N/C cathode is a promising candidate for aqueous ZIBs.