Sustained-Compensated Interfacial Zincophilic Sites to Assist High-Capacity Aqueous Zn Metal Batteries

Nano Lett. 2023 Feb 22;23(4):1135-1143. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c03433. Epub 2023 Feb 13.

Abstract

Aqueous Zn metal batteries have attracted extensive attention due to their intrinsic advantages. However, zinc ions tend to deposit irregularly, seriously depleting the capacity and stability of the battery. The construction of zincophilic sites can effectively regulate the nucleation and growth of Zn, but there is a defect that these sites will be covered with gradual failure after long-term cycling. Here, in combination with the sustained-compensated strategy, interfacial zincophilic sites are continuously constructed, thus effectively avoiding the threat of dendrites and improving the electrochemical performance. Impressively, at 10 mA cm-2 and 5 mAh cm-2, the protected Zn metal exhibits excellent cycling stability over 2000 cycles in the Zn//Zn battery. Moreover, even the cathode mass loading is considerably high (35 mg cm-2), and the Zn//NVO full cell significantly outperforms with high areal capacity (up to 4 mAh cm-2). This novel strategy provides a direction for the development of high-capacity aqueous batteries.

Keywords: Sustained-compensation; Zn metal; high capacity; zincophilic sites.