Crystal plane shielding and D-band modulation synergistically achieve durable (100) textured zinc anodes†

Abstract

Problems of dendrite formation, hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and zinc anode corrosion have restricted the performance of aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs). In this work, we introduce 2-butene-1,4-diol (BED) into a ZnSO₄ (ZSO) electrolyte which can both guide the zinc orientation and suppress the HER reaction via surface reconstruction. The preferential adsorption of BED on zinc (100) guides the vertical deposition of zinc, avoiding the dendrites generated by random deposition. In addition, BED restructures the electronic structure of the zinc surface, which inhibits the conversion of H⁺ to H_ad. As a result, the ZSO electrolyte with BED can be stably cycled for more than 3000 h (1 mA cm⁻², 1 mA h cm⁻²). Furthermore, the Zn‖V₂O₅ full cell at 5 A g⁻¹ preserves 80.4% of its capacity with 218.1 mA h g⁻¹ after 1000 cycles. Our research constructs durable (100) plane anodes and provides new insights into the mechanisms by which additives enhance the performance of zinc anodes.