Quasi-Solid Electrolyte Interphase Boosting Charge and Mass Transfer for Dendrite-Free Zinc Battery

Xueer Xu; Yifei Xu; Jingtong Zhang; Yu Zhong; Zhongxu Li; Huayu Qiu; Hao Bin Wu; Jie Wang; Xiuli Wang; Changdong Gu; Jiangping Tu

doi:10.1007/s40820-023-01031-7

Quasi-Solid Electrolyte Interphase Boosting Charge and Mass Transfer for Dendrite-Free Zinc Battery

Nanomicro Lett. 2023 Feb 28;15(1):56. doi: 10.1007/s40820-023-01031-7.

Authors

Xueer Xu¹, Yifei Xu², Jingtong Zhang³, Yu Zhong¹, Zhongxu Li¹, Huayu Qiu⁴, Hao Bin Wu², Jie Wang^{3

5}, Xiuli Wang¹, Changdong Gu⁶, Jiangping Tu¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Applications for Batteries of Zhejiang Province, and School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, People's Republic of China.
² Institute for Composites Science Innovation (InCSI) and State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, People's Republic of China.
³ Zhejiang Laboratory, Hangzhou, 311100, People's Republic of China.
⁴ Qingdao Industrial Energy Storage Research Institute, Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266101, People's Republic of China.
⁵ Department of Engineering Mechanics, School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, People's Republic of China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Applications for Batteries of Zhejiang Province, and School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, People's Republic of China. cdgu@zju.edu.cn.

Abstract

The practical applications of zinc metal batteries are plagued by the dendritic propagation of its metal anodes due to the limited transfer rate of charge and mass at the electrode/electrolyte interphase. To enhance the reversibility of Zn metal, a quasi-solid interphase composed by defective metal-organic framework (MOF) nanoparticles (D-UiO-66) and two kinds of zinc salts electrolytes is fabricated on the Zn surface served as a zinc ions reservoir. Particularly, anions in the aqueous electrolytes could be spontaneously anchored onto the Lewis acidic sites in defective MOF channels. With the synergistic effect between the MOF channels and the anchored anions, Zn²⁺ transport is prompted significantly. Simultaneously, such quasi-solid interphase boost charge and mass transfer of Zn²⁺, leading to a high zinc transference number, good ionic conductivity, and high Zn²⁺ concentration near the anode, which mitigates Zn dendrite growth obviously. Encouragingly, unprecedented average coulombic efficiency of 99.8% is achieved in the Zn||Cu cell with the proposed quasi-solid interphase. The cycling performance of D-UiO-66@Zn||MnO₂ (~ 92.9% capacity retention after 2000 cycles) and D-UiO-66@Zn||NH₄V₄O₁₀ (~ 84.0% capacity retention after 800 cycles) prove the feasibility of the quasi-solid interphase.

Keywords: Defect engineering; Mass transfer; Quasi-solid electrolyte interphase; Zinc batteries; Zinc metal anode.