Stable plating/stripping of metal electrodes under high power and high capacity remains a great challenge. Tailoring the deposition behavior on the substrate could partly resolve dendrites’ formation, but it usually works only under low current densities and limited capacities. Here we turn to regulate the separator’s interfacial chemistry through tin coating with decent conductivity and excellent zincophilicity. The former homogenizes the electric field distribution for smooth zinc metal on the substrate, while the latter enables the concurrent zinc deposition on the separator with a face-to-face growth. Consequently, dendrite-free zinc morphologies and superior cycling stability are achieved at simultaneous high current densities and large cycling capacities (1000 h at 5 mA/cm2 for 5 mAh/cm2 and 500 h at 10 mA/cm2 for 10 mAh/cm2). Furthermore, the concept could be readily extended to sodium metal anodes, demonstrating the interfacial chemistry regulation of separator is a promising route to circumvent the metal anode challenges.

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Low-cost and high-safety aqueous Zn ion batteries have been considered as promising alternatives to Li-ion batteries, provided that a stable Zn metal anode could be developed. The dendrite growth and...

Intractable hurdles of low Coulombic efficiency and dendritic Li formation during a repeated deposition/stripping process hinder the commercial use of  Li metal anode for next-generation battery systems. Achieving uniform Li nucleation is one of the effective strategies to address these issues, and it is of practical importance to realize this on a commercial Cu current collector that is lithiophobic. Herein, we design a nanostructured Ag lithiophilic layer on a Cu foil via an electroless plating process for a Li metal current collector. The deposition of lithiophilic Ag particles that are homogeneously distributed on the Cu foil can reduce the nucleation overpotential, realizing uniform Li nucleation and subsequently flat Li plating. As a result, a stable cycle stability of up to 360 h (1 mA cm–2) and an average Columbic efficiency of 94.5% for 100 cycles (1 mA cm–2) are achieved. Furthermore, CuAg full cells with LiFePO4 as a cathode exhibit good cycle performances and low polarization voltage. This approach provides another facile way for a stable lithium metal anode.