Recent Progress on Material Strategies for High-Performance Aqueous Zinc-Iodine Batteries

Aqueous Zinc-Iodine batteries (AZIBs) have emerged as a promising candidate for next-generation energy storage systems due to their intrinsic safety, environmental friendliness, and the use of abundant and low-cost materials. Despite these advantages, challenges such as the shuttle effect, low electrical conductivity, sluggish redox kinetics, and limited energy density have hindered their practical application. This review provides a comprehensive overview of recent advances in AZIB cathode materials, with a particular focus on carbon-based hosts, conductive and functional polymers, and organic–inorganic hybrid systems. Carbon materials, including porous carbon, graphene, and carbon nanotubes, are widely explored for their excellent conductivity and iodine confinement capabilities. Conductive polymers offer chemical interaction sites for polyiodide species, effectively mitigating shuttle effects and enhancing cycling performance. Meanwhile, hybrid materials such as MOFs, PBAs, MXenes, and perovskites present tunable porosity and strong iodine binding, contributing to both capacity and stability improvements. The review discusses design strategies, electrochemical performance, and underlying mechanisms of these cathode systems, highlighting the synergistic effects of structural engineering and material chemistry. Finally, perspectives on future research directions are proposed, aiming to overcome current limitations and accelerate the development of safe, efficient, and scalable AZIB technologies.