Active Screen Plasma-Enabled Metal Alloying for Stable Zinc Metal Growth toward Aqueous Zinc-Ion Batteries

Active-screen plasma (ASP) has attracted much attention as a versatile and powerful surface engineering method owing to its simple setup, low temperature, eco-friendliness, treatment uniformity, ability to deposit nano/microparticles with sputtering targets, and capability for controlling the chemical composition and morphology of the deposition layer. Recent investigations have shown that ASP technology has been used to treat various electrode materials for excellent electrochemical performance. This work demonstrates the feasibility of ASP technology to construct an artificial alloy layer on host materials and serve as promising Zn anode supports. We reveal the effect of some controllable or measurable variables on the formed alloy layer and discuss the core process of ASP-enabled metal alloying. Attractively, a stable and uniform Cu₅Zn₈ alloy layer with good zincophilic can effectively reduce the energy barrier of Zn nucleation and guide uniform Zn nucleation, which alleviates the dendritic growth during Zn deposition. Consequently, the Cu₅Zn₈-modified Cu host as the Zn anode support displays a high Coulombic efficiency of 99.5%, a lower overpotential of 45 mV, and a longer cycling life over 330 h. The assembled full cells deliver an exceptional capacity of 114 mA h g^-1 after 500 cycles with a capacity retention of 68%. This work provides an idea for constructing a stable Zn deposition interface and promotes the development of ASP technology.