Biomineralization Inspired the Construction of Dense Spherical Stacks for Dendrite-Free Zinc Anodes

Abstract

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) are considered to be one of the most promising energy storage systems due to their high degree of safety and low cost. However, the deposition of the uncontrolled zinc dendritic morphology on the surface of the Zn anode seriously reduces the cycle life of AZIBs. Herein, inspired by natural biomineralization, a uniform spherical zinc deposition is achieved via the addition of a biological macromolecule to the electrolyte. The proposed biological macromolecule makes Zn²⁺ undergo dense spherical deposition by regulating the relative growth rate of high-index planes of metal zinc, effectively avoiding the destruction from irregular zinc dendrites. The symmetric cell with the addition of such a biological macromolecule can be stably cycled for >3200 h at 1 mA cm^–2 for 1 mAh cm^–2. This work sheds light on expanding morphological regulation of metal deposition to spherical shapes for stable metal anodes in addition to a single-crystal plane control strategy.