Buried interface engineering towards stable zinc anodes for high-performance aqueous zinc-ion batteries

The dendrite and corrosion issues still remain for zinc anodes. Interface modification of anodes has been widely used for stabilizing zinc anodes. However, it is still quite challenging for such modification to simultaneously suppress zinc dendrites and corrosion issues. Herein, we propose a new strategy of buried interface engineering to effectively stabilize Zn anodes, in which a zincophilic Sn layer is buried by a corrosion-resistant ZnS layer (SZS). The buried Sn layer has a strong adsorption energy towards Zn atoms, which accelerates the nucleation of Zn atoms and induces smooth deposition. Meanwhile, the outer ZnS layer protects the newly deposited zinc layer from the corrosion by the electrolyte. As a result, the SZS@Zn symmetric cell demonstrates stable cycling for over 280 h compared to Bare Zn (41 h) at a high current of 10 mA cm^-2 and a high areal capacity of 10 mAh cm^-2. Besides, SZS@Zn//MnO₂ full cells also achieve enhanced long-term cycling stability of 63.6% for 1000 cycles at a high rate of 10 C, compared to Bare Zn (47.2%). This work provides a new strategy of buried interface for the rational design of highly stable metal anodes for other metal batteries.