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Aqueous zinc batteries are considered as promising alternatives to lithium ion batteries owing to their low cost and high safety. However, the developments of state‐of‐the‐art zinc‐ion batteries (ZIB) and zinc–air batteries (ZAB) are limited by the unsatisfied capacities and poor cycling stabilities, respectively. It is of significance in utilizing the long‐cycle life of ZIB and high capacity of ZAB to exploit advanced energy storage systems. Herein, a bulk composite of graphene oxide and vanadium oxide (V5O12·6H2O) as cathode material for aqueous Zn batteries in a mild electrolyte is employed. The battery performance is demonstrated to arise from a combination of the reversible cations insertion/extraction in vanadium oxide and especially the electrochemical redox reactions on the surface functional groups of graphene oxide (named as pseudo‐Zn–air mechanism). Along with adjusting the hydroxyl content on the surface of graphene oxide, the specific capacity is significantly increased from 342 mAh g−1 to a maximum of 496 mAh g−1 at 100 mA g−1. The surface‐controlled kinetics occurring in the bulk composite ensure a high areal capacity of 10.6 mAh cm−2 at a mass loading of 26.5 mg cm−2, and a capacity retention of 84.7% over 10 000 cycles at a high current density of 10 A g−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, metal organic framework (MOF) nanostructures have been frequently reported in the field of energy storage, specifically for Li-ion or Na-ion storage. By inter-separating the active sites of metal cluster and organic ligands, MOF nanostructures are exceptionally promising for realizing fast ion exchange and high-efficiency transportation and addressing the intricate issues that the energy-intensive Li-ion batteries have faced over many years. The related ion-storage mechanism remains to be explored. Is the traditional redox reaction mechanism operative for these nanostructure, as it is for transitional metal oxide? Herein, taking [Fe 3 O(BDC) 3 (H 2 O) 2 (NO 3 )]n (Fe-MIL-88B) as an example, an Fe-based metal organic polyhedral nanorods of MIL–88 B structure was designed as an anode for Li-ion storage. When tested at 60 mA g −1 , the nanoporous Fe-MIL–88 B polyhedral nanorods retained a reversible capacity of 744.5 mAh g −1 for more than 400 cycles. Ex situ characterizations of the post-cycled electrodes revealed that both the transition metal ions and the organic ligands contributed to the high reversible specific capacity. The polyhedral nanorods electrodes held the metal-organic skeleton together throughout the battery operation, although in a somewhat different manner than the pristine ones. This further substantiated that some MOF nanostructures are more appropriate than others for stable lithiation/delithiation processes. State-of-the-art CR2032 full cells showed that a high capacity of 86.8 mAh g −1 that was retained after 100 cycles (herein, the capacity for the full cell was calculated based on both the weight of the anode and the cathode, and the charge-discharge rate was 0.25C), when commercial LiFePO 4 powders were used as the cathode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]