Identification of an unconventional zinc coordination site in anhydrous ZnxV2O5 aerogels from X-ray absorption spectroscopy

V2O5 aerogel (ARG) has been studied as an insertion host for lithium ions and for several polyvalent cations. The stability, reversibility, and capacity far ion insertion and release processes make the amorphous ARC; are interesting material for battery applications. The local structural modifications resulting from the chemical insertion of Zn2+ ions into the host have been investigated by X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS). X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectra at the V K-edge of ZnxV2O5 did not shown any substantive change as a function of increasing amounts of intercalated ions, thus indicating the absence of interactions between the intercalated ions and the vanadium ions. To study the structural sites of the polyvalent ions, EXAFS (extended X-ray absorption fine structure) spectra have been recorded at the Zn K-edge. The EXAFS analysis showed that the Zn2+ ions are 4-fold coordinated by almost coplanar oxygens. In addition, differences in the first shell of the inserted Zn2+ as a function of the intercalation level have been observed. The first-shell Zn-O bond length shortened and the EXAFS Debye-Waller factor increased. This suggests a decrease of the local geometrical order of the first shell as polyvalent cations are inserted.