Biomass-derived polymer as a flexible "zincophilic-hydrophobic" solid electrolyte interphase layer to enable practical Zn metal anodes

Wenjian Chen; Yi Tan; Chengyue Guo; Xiaoyan Zhang; Xin He; Wei Kuang; Haofan Weng; He Du; Dan Huang; Yanping Huang; Jing Xu; Huibing He

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2024.04.234

Biomass-derived polymer as a flexible "zincophilic-hydrophobic" solid electrolyte interphase layer to enable practical Zn metal anodes

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2024 Sep:669:104-116. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.04.234. Epub 2024 May 1.

Authors

Wenjian Chen¹, Yi Tan¹, Chengyue Guo¹, Xiaoyan Zhang¹, Xin He², Wei Kuang³, Haofan Weng¹, He Du¹, Dan Huang³, Yanping Huang¹, Jing Xu⁴, Huibing He⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Petrochemical Resource Processing and Process Intensification Technology, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Energy Materials, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Chem/Bio-Sensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China. Electronic address: xinheabc@hnu.edu.cn.
³ School of Physical Science and Technology, Guangxi Novel Battery Materials Research Center of Engineering Technology, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China.
⁴ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Petrochemical Resource Processing and Process Intensification Technology, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Energy Materials, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China. Electronic address: xujing@ecust.edu.cn.
⁵ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Petrochemical Resource Processing and Process Intensification Technology, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Energy Materials, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China. Electronic address: huibinghe@gxu.edu.cn.

PMID: 38705110
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.04.234

Abstract

Aqueous zinc ion batteries (AZIBs) face significant challenges stemming from Zn dendrite growth and water-contact attack, primarily due to the lack of a well-designed solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) to safeguard the Zn anode. Herein, we report a bio-mass derived polymer of chitin on Zn anode (Zn@chitin) as a novel and robust artificial SEI layer to boost the Zn anode rechargeability. The polymeric chitin SEI layer features both zincophilic and hydrophobic characteristics to target the suppressed dendritic Zn formation as well as the water-induced side reactions, thus harvesting a dendrite-free and corrosion-resistant Zn anode. More importantly, this polymeric interphase layer is strong and flexible accommodating the volume changes during repeated cycling. Based on these benefits, the Zn@chitin anode demonstrates prolonged cycling performance surpassing 1300 h under an ultra-large current density of 20 mA cm^-2, and a long cycle life of 680 h with a record-high zinc utilization rate of 80 %. Besides, the assembled Zn@chitin/V₂O₅ full batteries reveal excellent capacity retention and rate performance under practical conditions, proving the reliability of our proposed strategy for industrial AZIBs. Our research offers valuable insights for constructing high-performance AZIBs, and simultaneously realizes the high-efficient use of cheap biomass from a "waste-to-wealth" concept.