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Updated: Aug 6, 2025

Zinc-Sponge Battery Electrodes that Suppress Dendrites
Published on: September 29, 2020
Interfacial Engineering Boosts Highly Reversible Zinc Metal for Aqueous Zinc-Ion Batteries
Danwen Yao1, Dongxu Yu2,3, Shiyu Yao2
1State Key Laboratory of Integrated Optoelectronics, College of Electronic Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
Zinc metal is emerging as the promising anode for aqueous Zn-ion batteries. However, corrosion and undesirable Zn dendrite growth limit their practical application in the large-scale energy storage area. Herein, a mountain-valley micro/nanostructure is successfully fabricated on the surface of the Zn anode via a femtosecond-laser filament texturing (FsLFT) technique. Beneficial from the large surface area and spontaneously generated ZnO coating layer, the FsLFT-Zn electrode demonstrates a slow corrosion rate with a current density of 0.62 mA cm-2 and a stable cycle life over 3000 h under 1 mA cm-2, superior to the original Zn anode. Simulation of the electric fields reveals that the enlarged surface area is responsible for the outstanding performance of the FsLFT-Zn electrode. This study not only proposes a novel strategy to suppress dendrite growth toward highly stable AZIBs but also opens a new avenue to solve similar issues in other metal batteries.
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