Thermodynamics and Kinetics in Host Design for Dendrite-Free Zinc Metal Anodes

Aqueous zinc metal batteries (AZMBs) have emerged as promising candidates for grid-scale energy storage due to their intrinsic safety, cost-effectiveness, and environmental friendliness. Nonetheless, the practical application of AZMBs is restricted by the uncontrolled Zn dendrite growth arising from undesirable reaction kinetics, as well as severe parasitic reactions (e.g., hydrogen evolution reaction, corrosion, and passivation) caused by the thermodynamic instability of Zn metal anodes (ZMAs) in aqueous electrolytes. Among various strategies, host design enables the effective mitigation of the aforementioned challenges through modulating thermodynamic properties (e.g., surface energy, adsorption energy, and nucleation energy barrier) and kinetic parameters (e.g., diffusion and desolvation of hydrated Zn²⁺ ions, and charge transfer). This review comprehensively summarizes the innovative advances in host design strategies and especially elucidates their underlying design principles from the insights of thermodynamics and kinetics. To be specific, the host design strategies are systematically categorized into surface modification, interface engineering, and spatial confinement. Finally, perspectives and recommendations for the further development of advanced hosts toward ultra-stable ZMAs are proposed.