An effective cellulose triacetate interlayer to construct a dendrite-free zinc anode for advanced aqueous zinc-ion batteries

Abstract

For Zn anodes of aqueous rechargeable zinc-ion batteries, the poor electrochemical performance caused by undesirable zinc dendritic formation and side reactions limit their practical application. Herein, a Zn2+ redistributor is created to reduce dendrites growth by inserting a cellulose triacetate (CTA) film as an interlayer between the zinc anode and the separator. The zinc dendritic formation and side reactions can be suppressed by the CTA interlayer. Consequently, the Zn anode covered by CTA interlayer exhibits highly reversible plating/stripping behavior with lifetime exceeding 2500 h and 600 h at current densities of 1 and 5 mA cm−2, respectively. In particular, the electrochemical performance of the full cells is investigated by using VO2 as the cathode and the CTA as interlayer. The Zn + CTA||VO2 full cells exhibit superior performance including high reversible capacity (490.2 mAh g−1 at 0.2 A g−1), excellent cycle performance (60.2% and 71.5% capacity retention after 5000 cycles at 5 A g−1 and 10 A g−1) and superior rate performance. This work demonstrates that designing a CTA interlayer is considered a cost-effective strategy to light up the practical application of aqueous zinc-ion batteries.