Tannic acid assisted metal-chelate interphase toward highly stable Zn metal anodes in rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries

• Published in: Frontiers in chemistry Vol. 10; p. 981623
• Main Authors: Hu, Nan, Qin, Hongyu, Chen, Xiangyou, Huang, Yanping, Xu, Jing, He, Huibing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Frontiers Media S.A 10.08.2022
• Subjects: Chemistry; interfacial engineering; metal–chelate interphase; tannic acid; zinc-ion batteries; Zn anode; zinc-ion batteries; tannic acid; interfacial engineering; Zn anode; metal–chelate interphase
• ISSN: 2296-2646; 2296-2646
• DOI: 10.3389/fchem.2022.981623

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) have attracted extensive attention because of their eco-friendliness, intrinsic safety, and high theoretical capacity. Nevertheless, the long-standing Zn anode issues such as dendrite growth, hydrogen evolution, and passivation greatly restrict the further development of AZIBs. Herein, a metal-chelate interphase with high Zn affinity is constructed on the Zn metal surface (TA@Zn) via dipping metallic Zn into a tannic acid (TA) solution to address the aforementioned problems. Benefiting from the abundant hydrophilic and zincophilic phenolic hydroxyl groups of TA molecules, the metal-chelate interphase shows strong attraction for Zn ions, guiding uniform zinc deposition as well as decreasing Zn migration barrier. Therefore, the TA@Zn anode displays an extended lifespan of 850 h at 1 mA cm- , 1 mAh cm in the Zn|Zn symmetrical cell, and a high Coulombic efficiency of 96.8% in the Zn|Ti asymmetric cell. Furthermore, the Zn|V O full cell using TA@Zn anode delivers an extremely high capacity retention of 95.9% after 750 cycles at 2 A g- . This simple and effective strategy broadens the interfacial modification scope on Zn metal anodes for advanced rechargeable Zn metal batteries.