Zincophilic Cu Sites Induce Dendrite‐Free Zn Anodes for Robust Alkaline/Neutral Aqueous Batteries

Abstract

Metallic zinc (Zn) for next-generation aqueous batteries often suffers from severe dendrite growth, unfavorable hydrogen evolution, and self-corrosion, especially in alkaline electrolyte. Herein, the authors demonstrate a facile and efficient strategy to tackle above issues by electrochemically depositing Zn onto the Cu-Zn alloy surface (CZ-Zn). The zincophilic Cu sites throughout the Cu-Zn alloy can remarkably enhance the Zn 2+ adsorption and promote homogeneous Zn nucleation on its surface, endowing it with highly reversible Zn plating/stripping chemistry. Furthermore, the intrinsically inert nature of Cu toward hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and high dezincification potential of the Cu-Zn alloy can effectively alleviate the hydrogen evolution and Zn corrosion in aqueous electrolyte. Consequently, the symmetric cells with the CZ-Zn electrodes exhibit outstanding cycling life in both alkaline and neutral electrolytes, which can operate steadily over 800 h and 1600 h at 2.5 mAh cm -2 , respectively, far surpassing the pristine Zn electrodes. In addition, a high-performance alkaline full battery with ultra-long cyclic stability (no capacity degradation after 5000 cycles) and excellent Coulombic efficiency (CE) (100%) is achieved by pairing this CZ-Zn anode with a Ni 3 S 2 @ polyaniline cathode. This study sheds light on the design of robust and ultra-stable Zn anodes for the state-of-art aqueous energy storage devices.

Semi‐Immobilized Ionic Liquid Regulator with Fast Kinetics toward Highly Stable Zinc Anode under −35 to 60 °C

“…k) Cycling performance of flexible Zn@SIP//MgVO full cell. l) Comparison of current density and capacity based on the Zn@SIP anode between this work and previous works [14,24,[30][31][32]34,[41][42][43][44][47][48][49][52][53][54][55][56][57].…”

“…l) Comparison of current density and capacity based on the Zn@SIP anode between this work and previous works. [14,24,[30][31][32]34,[41][42][43][44][47][48][49][52][53][54][55][56][57] www.advmat.de www.advancedsciencenews.com Adv. Mater.…”

Advances in the structure and composition design of zinc anodes for high performance zinc ion batteries

“…6a). 32 The results of first-principles calculations demonstrated that the lower binding energy of Zn 2+ on Cu–Zn alloy (111) is −1.28 eV, indicating that the interaction between Zn 2+ and Cu–Zn alloy (111) is stronger than Zn (101). So, uniform and compact Zn deposition is more easily achieved on the surface of Cu–Zn alloy with the zincophilic Cu adsorption site.…”

“…29 Furthermore, modifying the composition of substrates can improve the affinity between anodes and electrolytes, reducing the nucleation barrier and boosting the hydrogen evolution overpotential, so as to achieve the effect of inhibiting hydrogen evolution and preventing corrosion. 32 Meanwhile, rational physical structure design of anodes can effectively restrain the volume change of anodes during the repeated charging and discharging process.…”

Crystal Water Boosted Zn2+ Transfer Kinetics in Artificial Solid Electrolyte Interphase for High-Rate and Durable Zn Anodes

“…Therefore, Zn deposition is accompanied by continuous consumption of both electrolyte and active Zn, which dramatically lowers the Coulomb efficiency (CE) and eventually compromises the battery performance. Particularly, these competitive side reactions will exert a much more significant impact on the service life of ZIBs especially under high Zn utilization, where the loss of active Zn cannot be made up by limited Zn reservoir. − To date, extensive efforts have been devoted to solve these issues, − among which artificial interfacial engineering is considered as a cost-effective way to optimize the Zn anode. − By constructing dense artificial protective coating on the Zn anode, continuous anode corrosion and HER can be prevented by isolating the active Zn from directly contacting the bulk electrolyte, which has been proven to significantly improve the reversibility and cycling stability of Zn anode in routine aqueous electrolytes. − …”