A Semi‐solid Zinc Powder‐based Slurry Anode for Advanced Aqueous Zinc‐ion Batteries

Abstract

The booming of aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) draws the researchers' attention to issues of zinc metal anodes, such as uncontrollable dendrite growth, corrosion, and volume effects. Zinc powder anode is more suitable for the industrial application of AZIBs than the widely used zinc foil anode due to its low cost, tunability and processability. However, the related solutions are rarely studied because the above issues of zinc metal anode are more serious in zinc powder anode. Herein, for the first time, we design a semi-solid zinc slurry anode consisting of zinc powder and zincophilic tin additive dispersed in a conductive elastic rheological network. Zinc can be deposited homogeneously on the dispersed tin particles, which avoids agglomerative zinc deposition and alleviates volume change during repeated zinc stripping/plating. Moreover, the practical application of the full cell with slurry is very promising since its operating life can be easily extended by facile slurry renewal.

Reversible adsorption with oriented arrangement of a zwitterionic additive stabilizes electrodes for ultralong-life Zn-ion batteries

“…This means that the optimized solvated Zn 2+ is more inclined to induce Zn deposition on the (002) plane compared with hydrated [(Zn(H 2 O) 6 ] 2+ . 35,36 Specifically, zinc metal with more (002) deposition may favor stable Zn stripping/plating in weakly acidic aqueous electrolytes. Importantly, the preferential adsorption of L-CN can cover the active sites on the anode surface, effectively preventing H 2 O occupation to avoid undesired side reactions.…”

Recent progress of dendrite‐free stable zinc anodes for advanced zinc‐based rechargeable batteries: Fundamentals, challenges, and perspectives

“…However, zinc powder anode suffers from severe corrosion and hydrogen evolution due to the higher specific surface area and higher reactivity compared with the zinc foil anode. Therefore, some effective strategies have been exploited for the effective protection of zinc powder, such as semisolid zinc powder–based slurry, 62 the hybridization of commercial zinc powder and pristine graphene, 63 and spontaneous reaction of Zn powder and graphene oxide 64 …”

Atomically-ordered plating/stripping enables deep cycling zinc metal batteries

“…Extensive efforts have been devoted to addressing the irreversibility issues of Zn anodes from the point of view of electrode-electrolyte interface 5,6 , solvation sheath [7][8][9][10] , crystallographic orientation 11,12 and electrode composition [13][14][15] , etc. For instance, formation of a high-quality solid-electrolyte interphase is an effective strategy to prolong lifespan and prevent irreversible losses caused by the nonuniform ions/atoms migration, side reactions and gas generation 16,17 .…”