Stacking Pressure Modulated Deposition and Dissolution of Zinc Anode

Abstract

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) are emerging as a promising candidate for large-scale energy storage, offering enhanced safety and low costs. Nevertheless, the disordered growth of zinc dendrites has resulted in low coulombic efficiency and the dangers of short circuits, limiting the commercialization of ZIBs. In this study, a planar growth of zinc along the (002) direction is achieved by regulating the moderate initial stacking pressure during cell cycling and facilitating a larger zinc deposition particle size. The pivotal role of stacking pressure on the zinc nucleation, growth, and dissolution processes is elucidated with in situ pressure X-ray diffraction (XRD), time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMs), and scanning electronic microscopy (SEM). By adjusting the staking pressure from 20 to 300 kPa, the battery cycle time increased 5 times. This work highlights the opportunity to precisely manipulate metal deposition/dissolution with stacking pressure for long-cycle life batteries.