De-Passivation and Surface Crystal Plane Reconstruction via Chemical Polishing for Highly Reversible Zinc Anodes

Jin Cao; Xu Wang; Shangshu Qian; Dongdong Zhang; Ding Luo; Lulu Zhang; Jiaqian Qin; Xinyu Zhang; Xuelin Yang; Jun Lu

doi:10.1002/adma.202410947

De-Passivation and Surface Crystal Plane Reconstruction via Chemical Polishing for Highly Reversible Zinc Anodes

Adv Mater. 2024 Nov;36(46):e2410947. doi: 10.1002/adma.202410947. Epub 2024 Sep 27.

Authors

Jin Cao^{1

2

3}, Xu Wang², Shangshu Qian⁴, Dongdong Zhang^{3

5}, Ding Luo², Lulu Zhang², Jiaqian Qin⁶, Xinyu Zhang³, Xuelin Yang², Jun Lu⁴

Affiliations

¹ College of Materials and Chemical Engineering, China Three Gorges University, Yichang, Hubei, 443002, P. R. China.
² Hubei Provincial Collaborative Innovation Center for New Energy Microgrid, College of Electrical Engineering & New Energy, China Three Gorges University, Yichang, Hubei, 443002, P. R. China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Metastable Materials Science and Technology, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, 066004, P. R. China.
⁴ College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, P. R. China.
⁵ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shenyang University of Technology, Shenyang, 110870, P. R. China.
⁶ Center of Excellence on Advanced Materials for Energy Storage, Metallurgy and Materials Science Research Institute, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 10330, Thailand.

PMID: 39328016
DOI: 10.1002/adma.202410947

Abstract

Despite the widespread adoption of Zn anodes for aqueous energy storage, the presence of an inherent passivation layer and the polycrystalline interface of commercial Zn foil consistently lead to non-uniform electrodeposition, undermining stability and practicality. Herein, the study introduces a chemically polished Zn metal anode (CP-Zn) fabricated via a simple immersion method. This "chemically polishing" process can effectively remove the interfacial passivation layer (de-passivation), providing ample active sites for plating/stripping and ensuring the uniformly distributed electric field and Zn²⁺ ion flux. Additionally, selective etching during chemical polishing exposes more (002) crystal planes, promoting homogeneous and smooth zinc deposition while suppressing related side reactions. Demonstrated by CP-Zn anode, the symmetric cell exhibits stable cycling over 4600 h at 1 mA cm^-2 and 240 h at 50% depth of discharge (DOD), with a CP-Zn||VO₂ full cell maintaining ≈75.3% capacity retention over 1000 cycles at 3 A g^-1. This chemically polishing strategy presents a promising avenue for advancing the commercialization of aqueous zinc-ion batteries.

Keywords: (002) crystal plane; chemically polishing; dendrites; passivation layer; zinc‐ion batteries.

Abstract

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