Revolutionary horizons in nonaqueous and aqueous-nonaqueous electrolyte design for safer high-performance zinc-ion batteries

Rechargeable zinc-ion battery development has experienced a surge of literature interest. The use of nonaqueous molecules opens up areas of electrolyte design space that has shown promise in overcoming the traditional limitations of aqueous zinc systems. This review aims to illuminate the fundamental characteristics of zinc-ion electrolytes, their interactions at the electrode-electrolyte interfaces of the battery, and their implications for reversibility and stability. The underlying principles of zinc-ion solvation in solely nonaqueous and aqueous-nonaqueous hybrids enable the correlation of coordination environments, anion selection, and solvent polarity to key performance criteria including deposition morphology, Coulombic efficiency, and electrochemical stability window. By combining molecular-level design principles with a retrospective of nonaqueous electrolyte trends and successes, this article provides a succinct analysis of the last decade of structure-property insights derived from nonaqueous molecules to propel further development of nonaqueous and aqueous-nonaqueous zinc-ion electrolytes.