Suppressing by-product via stratified adsorption effect to assist highly reversible zinc anode in aqueous electrolyte

摘要

The development of promising zinc anodes mainly suffers from their low plating/stripping coulombic efficiencies when using aqueous electrolyte,which are mainly associated with the interfacial formation of irreversible by-products.It is urgent to develop technologies that can solve this issue fundamentally.Herein,we report an artificial Sc_(2)O_(3) protective film to construct a new class of interface for Zn anode.The density functional theory simulation and experimental results have proven that the interfacial side reaction was inhibited via a stratified adsorption effect between this artificial layer and Zn anode.Benefiting from this novel structure,the Sc_(2)O_(3)-coated Zn anode can run for more than 100 cycles without short circuit and exhibit low voltage hysteresis,and the coulombic efficiency increases by 1.2%.Importantly,it shows a good application prospect when matched with two of popular manganese-based and vanadium-based cathodes.The excellent electrochemical performance of the Sc_(2)O_(3)-coated Zn anode highlights the importance of rational design of anode materials and demonstrates a good way for developing high-performance Zn anodes with long lifespan and high efficiency.