Anode surface pretreatment to optimize electrochemical performance of aqueous zinc-ion batteries

The aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) exhibit promising potential as a viable solution for large energy storage. Solving dendrite growth the surface of zinc metal anode in AZIBs is of great significance for its application in energy storage field. Among the many strategies for solving the zinc anode problem, the influence of zinc anode pretreatment is often ignored. The effect of sandpaper physical polishing on the performance of zinc anode was studied in this paper. The striated grooves formed on the surface of the zinc anode after sandpaper treatment make the zinc anode have a large specific surface area and a high zinc plating/stripping kinetics. It was found that sandpaper with larger mesh count (the finer the sandpaper) could reduce roughness and had the higher the electrochemical performance of zinc anodes. Consequently, the cycle life of 2000 M-Zn symmetric battery can reach 900 h under the current density of 0.5 mA cm−2. In the application of energy storage, the full battery composed of 2000 M-Zn and sodium doped V2O5 cathode (NVO) still has a specific capacity of 148.6 mAh g−1 after 500 cycles, and has a stable rate performance. The pretreatment strategy of zinc anode holds significant importance in the applications of AZIBs.