Construction of Metal‐Organic Interface Layers via Highly Expandable Wet Etching for High Stability Zinc Anode
Ziming Wan, Weihua Zhou, Zhuo Chen, Jian Wang, Haoyu Feng, Lin Sheng, Junrun Feng, Zhangxiang Hao
Abstract
Abstract Aqueous zinc‐ion batteries (AZIBs) have gained significant traction in large‐scale energy storage due to their notable safety and cost‐effectiveness. Nevertheless, their commercialization has been significantly hindered by long‐term issues such as dendrite growth, hydrogen evolution reaction, and other side reactions. In this study, it is proposed a chemical wet etching method that is both simple and highly scalable. This method effectively removes the natural passivation layer on the Zn surface, creating a metal‐organic artificial interfacial layer (TAU‐60@Zn). This layer exhibits a low nucleation barrier and a high ion transfer number, thereby promoting the rapid and uniform deposition of Zn ions. Furthermore, TAU‐60@Zn assists in maintaining the pH at the electrolyte/anode interface, thereby effectively hindering the hydrogen evolution reaction and other undesirable side reactions. Consequently, the symmetric cell assembled with TAU‐60@Zn attains an exceptional cycle life of over 2925 h at a current density of 5 mA cm −2 , and 180 h at 34.2% depth of discharge (DOD). Furthermore, the full cell with a MnO 2 cathode retains 46% of its capacity after 1000 cycles, compared to just 30% for the MnO 2 //Zn cell. This chemical etching strategy offers a promising path forward for the commercial application of AZIBs.