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

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 Sc2O3 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 Sc2O3-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 Sc2O3-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. (C) 2020 Science Press and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. and Science Press. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

A new artificial Sc2O3 protective film has been developed to construct a novel interface for Zn anode, inhibiting interfacial side reactions and improving cycling stability and coulombic efficiency. The research demonstrates the importance of rational design of anode materials for developing high-performance Zn anodes with long lifespan and high efficiency.