Cyclic Ether-Water Hybrid Electrolyte-Guided Dendrite-Free Lamellar Zinc Deposition by Tuning the Solvation Structure for High-Performance Aqueous Zinc-Ion Batteries

The serious zinc dendrites and poor cyclability at high cathode loading owing to the strong solvation effect of traditional aqueous electrolytes are the main bottlenecks to the development of aqueous rechargeable zinc-ion batteries (ARZIBs). Here, we design an ether-water hybrid zinc-ion electrolyte with bifunctional roles of not only unplugging the dendrites bottleneck at the Zn anode but also extending the cycle life at high cathode loading. A cyclic ether (1,4-dioxane (DX)) is incorporated into traditional ZnSO4-based electrolytes to finely tune the solvation sheath of Zn2+. DX is found to guide the deposition orientation of zinc along the (002) plane, leading to not a dendritic structure but distinctively dense lamellar deposition due to the stronger affinity of the cyclic DX molecules toward Zn(002) than that of water, which is proven by density functional theory calculations. The cycling lifespan of the Zn anode extends up to over 600 h at 5.0 mA cm(-2) and maintains extremely high Coulombic efficiency of 99.8%, thereby further enabling the Zn-MnO2 full cells to stably cycle at an ultrahigh mass loading of 9.4 mg cm(-2), paving the way to their practical applications. This work also provides a novel electrolyte regulating solution for other aqueous multivalent metal-ion batteries.

Automated summary

By designing an ether-water hybrid zinc-ion electrolyte, the dendrite issue caused by the strong solvation effect of traditional electrolytes is successfully addressed, enabling stable cycling of zinc-MnO2 full cells under high loading. This research not only offers a new solution to improve the cycling performance of rechargeable zinc-ion batteries, but also expands the electrolyte regulating strategies for other aqueous multivalent metal-ion batteries.