Highly-Efficient and Robust Zn Anodes Enabled by Sub-1-µm Zincophilic CrN Coatings

For exploring advanced Zn-ion batteries (ZIBs) with long lifespan and high Coulombic efficiency (CE), the critically important point is to limit the undesired Zn dendrite and parasitic reactions. Among the coating for electrode is a promising strategy, relying on the trade-off between its thickness and stability to achieve the ultra-stable Zn anodes in ZIBs. Herein, a submicron-thick (≈0.4 µm) zincophilic CrN coatings are fabricated by a facile and industry-compatible magnetron sputtering approach. It is exhilarating that the ultrathin and dense CrN coatings with strong adsorption ability for Zn²⁺ exhibit an impressive lifespan up to 3700 h with ≈100% CE at 1 mA cm^-2. Along with the experiments and theoretical calculations, it is verified that the introduced CrN coatings cannot only effectively suppress the dendrite growth and notorious parasitic reactions, but also allow the uniform Zn deposition due to the reduced nucleation energy. Moreover, the as-assembled Zn@CrN‖MnO₂ full cell delivers a high specific capacity of 171.1 mAh g^-1 after 1000 cycles at 1 A g^-1, much better than that of Zn‖MnO₂ analog (97.8 mAh g^-1). This work provides a facile strategy for scalable fabrication of ultrathin zincophilic coating to push forward the practical applications of ZIBs.