Quaternary Alloy Interfaces for Stable Zinc Anodes for High-Performance Aqueous Zinc-Ion Batteries With Long-Term...

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Electrochemistry
• Energy Storage

Background:

• Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) offer safe, low-cost energy storage but face challenges with zinc anode dendrite growth and side reactions.
• These issues limit the cycle life and practical application of AZIBs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a cost-effective strategy for creating an artificial interface layer on zinc anodes to enhance AZIB performance.
• To investigate the mechanism of dendrite suppression and side reaction mitigation using this interface layer.

Main Methods:

• Electrodeposition of a quaternary Zn-Cu-Sn-Bi alloy (ZCSB) on zinc foil to form the ZCSB@Zn anode.
• Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations to analyze the interface layer's effect on zinc deposition and hydrogen adsorption.
• In situ optical dendrite observation to monitor zinc plating behavior.
• Fabrication and testing of symmetric ZCSB@Zn cells and ZCSB@Zn//CSB-MnO2 full cells.

Main Results:

• The ZCSB alloy layer effectively promotes uniform zinc deposition and suppresses dendrite formation by reducing migration barriers and weakening hydrogen adsorption.
• Symmetric ZCSB@Zn cells demonstrated exceptional cycle stability exceeding 8000 hours.
• The full cell achieved a high specific capacity of 199 mAh g⁻¹ at 1 A g⁻¹, maintaining stability under high loading (10 mg cm⁻²) and elevated temperature (50 °C).

Conclusions:

• A scalable and cost-effective method for fabricating quaternary artificial interface layers for zinc anodes was successfully demonstrated.
• The ZCSB@Zn anode significantly enhances the stability and performance of aqueous zinc-ion batteries.
• This approach holds great promise for the practical realization of high-performance AZIBs.