Rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries have been considered as a promising candidate for next-generation batteries. However, the formation of zinc dendrites are the most severe problems limiting their practical applications. To develop stable zinc metal anodes, a synergistic method is presented that combines the Cu-Zn solid solution interface on a copper mesh skeleton with good zinc affinity and a polyacrylamide electrolyte additive to modify the zinc anode, which can greatly reduce the overpotential of the zinc nucleation and increase the stability of zinc deposition. The as-prepared zinc anodes show a dendrite-free plating/stripping behavior over a wide range of current densities. The symmetric cell using this dendrite-free anode can be cycled for more than 280 h with a very low voltage hysteresis (93.1 mV) at a discharge depth of 80 %. The high capacity retention and low polarization are also realized in Zn/MnO2 full cells.
Keywords: energy conversion; interfaces; polyacrylamide; zinc dendrites; zinc metal anode.
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