Salt solution etching to construct micro-gullies on the surface of Zn anodes enhances anodes performance in aqueous zinc-ion batteries

Bin-Bin Sui; Lin Sha; Peng-Fei Wang; Zhe Gong; Yu-Hang Zhang; Yu-Han Wu; Li-Na Zhao; Jun-Jie Tang; Fa-Nian Shi

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.09.039

Salt solution etching to construct micro-gullies on the surface of Zn anodes enhances anodes performance in aqueous zinc-ion batteries

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2024 Jan;653(Pt A):159-169. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.09.039. Epub 2023 Sep 9.

Authors

Bin-Bin Sui¹, Lin Sha¹, Peng-Fei Wang², Zhe Gong³, Yu-Hang Zhang¹, Yu-Han Wu¹, Li-Na Zhao¹, Jun-Jie Tang¹, Fa-Nian Shi⁴

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Polymer and Catalyst Synthesis Technology of Liaoning Province, School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shenyang University of Technology, Shenyang 110870, China.
² Key Laboratory of Polymer and Catalyst Synthesis Technology of Liaoning Province, School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shenyang University of Technology, Shenyang 110870, China. Electronic address: wangpengfei@sut.edu.cn.
³ College of Chemical Engineering, Shenyang University of Chemical Technology, Shenyang 110870, China. Electronic address: zgong@syuct.edu.cn.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Polymer and Catalyst Synthesis Technology of Liaoning Province, School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shenyang University of Technology, Shenyang 110870, China. Electronic address: shifn@sut.edu.cn.

PMID: 37713914
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.09.039

Abstract

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) have caused significant research attention due to their low redox potential of 0.76 V, high theoretical capacity of 820 mAh g^-1. However, the dendrite growth of zinc anode and the side reactions caused by water seriously affect the cycle life of AZIBs. To solve the above problems, a new method of etching zinc anodes with CuCl₂ salt solution was designed, which the zinc anode was named CZn. The process resulted to a uniformly distributed micro gully morphology on the zinc surface, and providing an increased number of nucleation sites for zinc deposition and reducing local current density. The calculation results of exchange current density and activation energy show that CZn has stronger Zn/Zn²⁺ kinetic effect. At a current density of 5 mA cm^-2 and an area capacity of 5 mAh cm^-2, cycle life of the CZn symmetrical cell can reach 500 h, which is more than seven times that of the raw Zn symmetrical cell. This work proposes a simple method of zinc anode protection, which provides a new idea for zinc metal anode protection.

Keywords: Anode protection; Aqueous zinc-ion batteries; Dendrite growth; Micro-gully morphology; Surface kinetic effect.