Tile-like (101)-textured surface reconstruction enables durable zinc anodes

Aqueous zinc metal batteries (AZMBs) have emerged as promising candidates for large-scale energy storage owing to their intrinsic safety and low cost. However, their practical application still suffers from severe interfacial instability, including uncontrolled dendrite growth, parasitic hydrogen evolution, and continuous formation of by-products. Herein, we propose an ultrasonic-assisted etching strategy to construct a zinc anode (denoted as GP5-Zn) featuring preferentially exposed (101) crystal facets and tile-like surface structure. The exposed Zn(101) facets facilitate favorable Zn nucleation and accelerate deposition kinetics, while the tile-like surface effectively suppresses parasitic hydrogen evolution and corrosion reactions. Meanwhile, the reconstructed surface regulates interfacial ion transport and promotes more uniform Zn deposition. As a result, the GP5-Zn anode delivers stable cycling for over 2000 h at 0.5 mA cm^-2 with a high Coulombic efficiency of 99.08%. When assembled with a V₂O₅ cathode, the full cell exhibits outstanding cycling stability over 1500 cycles at 3.0 A g^-1 along with significantly mitigated self-discharge. This work provides a facile design strategy for constructing zinc metal anodes via coupled surface reconstruction and crystal facet engineering.