Rechargeable aqueous zinc ion batteries (AZIBs) at present have attracted extensive attention as a promising energy storage system to replace the traditional lithium-ion batteries because of their high energy density,...

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Challenges with the Zn anode for aqueous zinc ion batteries have hindered their practical applications, such as uncontrollable formation of the Zn dendrite and serious side reactions. Herein, we fabricate a flexible coating layer with porous and conductive carbon networks (Cu@CNFs) by a simple electrospinning method to construct a stable Zn anode. It can uniformly distribute the charge, regulate the Zn 2+ flux, and stabilize the zinc anode. Moreover, the zincopilic Cu nanoparticles (CuNPs) in the coating layer act as nucleation seeds to facilitate the homogeneous deposition of Zn and inhibit its dendrite growth. Density functional theory calculations have further demonstrated the zincophilicity of the CuNPs seeds. As a result, the Cu@CNFs-Zn anode demonstrates a lower nucleation overpotential (58.3 mV at 5.0 mA cm −2 ) and a higher Coulombic efficiency compared with bare Zn and CNFs-Zn anodes. Remarkably, the Cu@CNFs-Zn anode can provide a stable cycle over 2200 h at 1.0 mA cm −2 with a capacity of 1.0 mAh cm −2 . Moreover, the Cu@CNFs-Zn//V 2 O 5 battery achieves a superior cyclability up to 1000 cycles at 0.5A g −1 , which is attributed to the large surface areas of CNFs and the zincophilicity of the Cu@CNFs coating.

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