posted on 2023-12-18, 07:20authored byTiantian Lu, YuShuang Lin, Lixiang Guan, Lifeng Hou, Huayun Du, Huan Wei, Xiaoda Liu, Chengkai Yang, Yinghui Wei, Meijia Song, Wen Liu, Henghui Zhou, Qian Wang
Aqueous zinc battery has low cost, environmental friendliness,
and safety, making it a promising candidate for next-generation battery
systems. However, the Zn metal anode is impeded by a notorious dendrite
growth and severe interfacial side reactions. Herein, a dendrite-free
deposition mechanism based on an interfacial cyclization molecular
layer is proposed, which enables dendrite-free Zn plating and lowers
electrolyte corrosion by introducing trace methionine (Met) into the
electrolyte. Different from normal acid-based additives, the Met can
undergo cyclization via electrostatic interactions between amino and
carboxyl groups, absorbing on the Zn electrode surface and forming
an interfacial molecular layer, which can not only effectively remove
the active H2O molecules from the electrode surface but
can also regulate the solvated structure and Zn2+-flux
distribution at the interface, thereby suppressing dendritic Zn growth
and side reactions. Thus, the Zn|Cu cells display a high Coulombic
efficiency of >99.4% over 700 cycles at a current density of 1.0
mA
cm–2. Zn∥Zn symmetrical cells can also maintain
a low overpotential over 2600 h at a current density of 1 mA cm–2. Besides, the full cells with V2O5 cathode exhibit a long cycling life and high capacity retention
(>60.6% after 1000 cycles at 0.5 A g–1). We believe
such an interfacial cyclization mechanism can offer an avenue to design
stable electrodes/electrolytes and may also be expanded to other battery
chemistries.