Multifunctional interfacial modification layer construction on zinc anode for high-performance zinc metal batteries

Abstract

Aqueous zinc (Zn) metal batteries have demonstrated great application potential in large-scale energy storage systems, while the practical implementation is hindered by hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and dendrite growth on Zn anode to deteriorate electrochemical performance. Interfacial chemical microenvironment reconstruction has emerged as a promising strategy via molecular adsorption layers to enhance the interface stability on Zn anode, but confronts single functionality issues. Herein, multifunctional interfacial modification layer (MIML) was constructed on Zn anode through the introduction of sulfosuccinic acid as electrolyte additive. The dual-carboxyl groups in MIML can be served as robust anchoring sites on Zn anode and effectively facilitate the fast desolvation kinetics through strong coordination effect to hinder HER. Meanwhile, abundant sulfonic acid groups with high ionization capacity enhance the ionic transport ability of MIML to promote uniform Zn²⁺ deposition and suppress dendrite growth. As a result, Zn anode with MIML can achieve long-term cycling stability of 1600 h and good reversibility under high current density of 30 mA cm^-2, as well as Zn-I₂ full battery with MIML displays long cycling life of 10000 cycles. This work opens a novel route to design advanced interface with fast kinetics by trace electrolyte additive for high-performance Zn metal batteries. This work paves a new way for constructing multifunctional advanced interfaces on Zn anode via electrolyte additive engineering to enhance the overall electrochemical performance of Zn metal batteries.