Advanced Zinc Anode with Nitrogen-Doping Interface Induced by Plasma Surface Treatment

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) are one of the most ideal candidates for grid-scale energy storage applications due to their excellent price and safety advantages. However, formation of Zn dendrites and continuous side reactions during cycling result in serious instability problems for ZIBs. In this work, the authors develop a facile and versatile plasma-induced nitrogen-doped Zn (N-Zn) foil for dendrite-free Zn metal anode. Benefitting from the uniform nucleation sites and enhanced surface kinetics, the N-Zn anode exhibits exceptionally low overpotential (around 23 mV) at 1 mA cm^-2 and can be cycled for over 3000 h under 1 mA cm^-2 because of the enhanced interface behavior. The potential application of N-Zn anode is also confirmed by introducing a full Zn/MnO₂ battery with outstanding capacity stability for 2000 cycles at 1 A g^-1 . Overall, this work offers new fundamental insights into homogenizing Zn electrodeposition processes by pre-introduced active nucleation sites and provides a novel direction of interface design engineering for ultra-stable Zn metal anode.