Zincophilic and low-active metallic particles-induced alloying/dealloying behavior for high-performance aqueous zinc metal batteries

Aqueous zinc metal batteries (AZMBs) represent one of the most promising next-generation energy storage devices in terms of competitiveness. However, the commercialization of AZMBs has been significantly impeded by the occurrence of random dendrite growth and inevitable parasitic reactions on Zn metal anodes. In order to address this issue, we propose a solution wherein the surface of Zn foil is retouched through a replacement reaction with zincophilic and low-active Cu particles (designated as CuRZn). The CuRZn electrode exhibits exceptional corrosion resistance and enables stable Zn plating/stripping via alloying/dealloying processes. Consequently, the CuRZn||CuRZn symmetric battery exhibits stable operation for over 3200 h under 1 or 5 mA cm⁻² and 1 mA h cm⁻², and the CuRZn||Cu asymmetric battery achieves an excellent coulombic efficiency of 99.86 % under 2 mA cm⁻² and 1 mA h cm⁻² for over 2300 cycles. When coupled to an ammonium vanadate (NVO) cathode, the performance of the CuRZn||NVO full battery, which has a larger capacity (183.4 mA h g⁻¹) than that of the bare Zn||NVO full battery (94.8 mA h g⁻¹) at 2 A g⁻¹, greatly improves after 1000 cycles. This study provides a simple and efficient surface retouching strategy for Zn metal anodes to achieve high-performance AZMBs.