Epitaxial Electrodeposition of Zinc on Different Single Crystal Copper Substrates for High Performance Aqueous Batteries

The aqueous zinc metal battery holds great potential for large-scale energy storage due to its safety, low cost, and high theoretical capacity. However, challenges such as corrosion and dendritic growth necessitate controlled zinc deposition. This study employs epitaxy to achieve large-area, dense, and ultraflat zinc plating on textured copper foil. High-quality copper foils with Cu(100), Cu(110), and Cu(111) facets were prepared and systematically compared. The results show that Cu(111) is the most favorable for zinc deposition, offering the lowest nucleation overpotential, diffusion energy, and interfacial energy with a Coulombic efficiency (CE) of 99.93%. The study sets a record for flat-zinc areal loading at 20 mAh/cm². These findings provide some clarity on the best-performing copper and zinc crystalline facets, with Cu(111)/Zn(0002) ranking the highest. Using a MnO₂–Zn full cell model, the research achieved an exceptional cycle life of over 800 cycles in a cathode–anode-free battery configuration.