Self-charging aqueous metal-based batteries are attracting extensive attention for use in energy conversion and storage technologies. However, they are constrained to the chemically self-charging mode by oxygen gas (O₂) reactants and suffer from serious battery failure after cycling due to the accumulation of solid byproducts on the electrodes. Herein, we report a universal approach to develop self-charging aqueous hydrogen gas (H₂) batteries (SCAHGBs) with three different working modes, i.e., chemically self-charging, short-circuit induced self-charging, and low-energy-input triggered quasi-self-charging. The SCAHGBs can be self-recharged by the spontaneous chemical reaction between the discharged cathode and O₂ reactants or the electrochemical reaction between the discharged cathode and electrocatalytic O₂ electrode. Notably, the SCAHGBs after self-charge/discharge cycles only involve the generation of clean water by the combination of OH⁻ and H⁺ ions, which can completely avoid the generation of solid byproducts thus guaranteeing excellent cycling stability with high-capacity retention of 90–100%. Interestingly, the self-charging capacity of the short-circuit induced self-charging battery can reach the practical capacity of 76% in only 15 min, and the low-energy-input triggered quasi-self-charging battery can achieve a high output voltage of 1.69 V. This work provides promising strategies for designing advanced self-charging battery systems.

中文翻译：

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自充电水系氢气电池

自充电水基金属电池在能量转换和存储技术中的应用引起了广泛的关注。然而，它们受到氧气（O ₂）反应物的化学自充电模式的限制，并且由于固体副产物在电极上的积累而在循环后遭受严重的电池故障。在此，我们报告了一种开发具有三种不同工作模式的自充电水氢气（H ₂）电池（SCAHGB）的通用方法，即化学自充电、短路诱导自充电和低能量输入触发准自充电。 SCAHGB可以通过放电的阴极和O ₂反应物之间的自发化学反应或放电的阴极和电催化O ₂电极之间的电化学反应来自充电。值得注意的是，SCAHGB在自充/放电循环后仅涉及通过OH ^-和H ⁺离子的结合产生清洁水，这可以完全避免固体副产物的产生，从而保证优异的循环稳定性和90的高容量保持率–100%。有趣的是，短路诱导自充电电池的自充电容量仅需15分钟即可达到实用容量的76%，而低能量输入触发准自充电电池可以实现高输出电压1.69 V。这项工作为设计先进的自充电电池系统提供了有前景的策略。