Zn and N co-doped three-dimensional honeycomb-like carbon featured with interconnected nano-pools for dendrite-free zinc anode

Ao Xie; Xin You; Rufei Zhang; Jinyuan Miao; Linting Cheng; Xuefeng Tai; Zhiwei Qin; Yang Tang; Xiaojin Yang; Yongmei Chen; Pingyu Wan

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.028

Zn and N co-doped three-dimensional honeycomb-like carbon featured with interconnected nano-pools for dendrite-free zinc anode

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 May 15:638:629-639. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.028. Epub 2023 Feb 9.

Authors

Ao Xie¹, Xin You², Rufei Zhang², Jinyuan Miao¹, Linting Cheng¹, Xuefeng Tai³, Zhiwei Qin¹, Yang Tang⁴, Xiaojin Yang², Yongmei Chen², Pingyu Wan⁵

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Applied Electrochemistry, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, 100029, NO.15 of North Third Ring East Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China.
² National Fundamental Research Laboratory of New Hazardous Chemicals Assessment & Accident Analysis, Institute of Electrochemical Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, 100029, NO.15 of North Third Ring East Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China.
³ Institute of New Technologies for Precursors, Ningbo Ronbay New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., 315400, No.39 of East Road of Tanjialing, Yuyao, Zhejiang, China.
⁴ Institute of Applied Electrochemistry, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, 100029, NO.15 of North Third Ring East Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China. Electronic address: tangyang@mail.buct.edu.cn.
⁵ National Fundamental Research Laboratory of New Hazardous Chemicals Assessment & Accident Analysis, Institute of Electrochemical Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, 100029, NO.15 of North Third Ring East Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China. Electronic address: pywan@mail.buct.edu.cn.

PMID: 36774876
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.028

Abstract

The zinc-ion battery (ZIB) has been extensively researched as one of the promising electrochemical power sources. However, the problem of Zn-dendrite formation during repeated plating and stripping process seriously hinders the development of ZIBs. Herein, three-dimensional (3D) honeycomb-like porous carbon (HPC) with co-doping of zinc and nitrogen is prepared through confining growth of nanoscale zeolite imidazole framework-8 (ZIF-8) on the well-designed nano-pools walls of HPC followed by pyrolysis at 600 ℃ to obtain the final product ZnN/HPC-600, which exhibits large surface area and abundant zincophilic interfaces, ensuring homogeneous distribution of electronic field and low polarization during cycling process. Importantly, ZnN/HPC-600 facilitates the uniform distribution and migration of Zn²⁺ in this nano-pools structure, avoiding the growth of dendritic Zn crystal during charging stage. The symmetric and asymmetric cells with Zn/ZnN/HPC-600 anodes are assembled, demonstrating excellent cycling reversibility, good rate performance and long-term stability. Besides, a Zn||MnO₂ full cell with Zn/ZnN/HPC-600 anode also exhibits robust cycling stability, fast reaction kinetics and almost 100 % coulombic efficiency. This work offers a novel and efficient carbonaceous nano-pools strategy to realize dendrite-free zinc anode in ZIBs.

Keywords: Carbon materials; Dendrite-free; Nano-pools strategy; Zinc anode; Zinc-ions battery.