Intrinsic Carbon Defects Induced Reversible Antimony Chemistry for High-Energy Aqueous Alkaline Batteries

Developing high-capacity, dendrite-free, and stable anode materials for robust aqueous alkaline batteries (AABs) is an ongoing challenge. Antimony (Sb) is predicated as an attractive anode material, but it still suffers from low capacity and poor stability caused by the obstructed kinetic behavior and uncontrollable nucleation for SbO₂ ^- . Herein, designing a new defect-modified carbon skeleton (D-CS), a highly reversible Sb anode with ultralong cycling stability is realized at practical levels of capacity and high depth of discharge (DOD). The abundant intrinsic carbon defects can effectively form positive charge centers to weaken electrostatic repulsion between SbO₂ ^- and electrode surface, facilitating the fast ion kinetics and provide generous controllable nucleation sites. In addition, the uniform electric field distribution of the D-CS induces manageable plating and stripping of the Sb metal, which effectively boosts its electrochemical reversibility and restrains adverse reactions. Accordingly, the Sb/D-CS electrode achieves a long cycle life of over 500 h with a capacity of 2 mAh cm^-2 . Even at an ultrahigh capacity of 10 mAh cm^-2 , it can still work stably up to 40 h. Furthermore, its feasibility as advanced anode in AABs is also confirmed by assembled Ni//Sb/D-CS full batteries with an ultrahigh capacity of 13.5 mAh cm^-2 and a considerable stability of 4500 cycles.