Antimony-modified porous lamellar zinc as reversible and stable anode for high-performance alkaline aqueous zinc-air battery

Monometallic Zn is a promising anode material for post-lithium batteries owing to its high theoretical capacity, low cost and natural abundance. However, the practical application in zinc-air batteries (ZABs) remain limited by uncontrollable dendrite growth and severe voltage polarization during repeated cycling. Herein, we report self-supported Sb-modified porous lamellar zincophilic electrode (Sb-pZn) as a reversible, dendrite-free and high-performance hostless Zn anode for aqueous alkaline rechargeable ZABs. The porous lamellar framework is fabricated by selectively dissolving the Al component from the eutectic Zn-Al alloy via chemical dealloying, followed by surface modification through galvanic replacement in SbCl3 solution. The Sb-pZn anode with lamellar thickness of ~2920 nm (Sb-pZn-2920) enables continuous electron and ion transport pathways through quasi-periodic lamellar channels and interconnected ligament network, ensuring uniform Zn deposition and dissolution. Moreover, Sb incorporation introduces abundant zincophilic sites that accelerate charge-transfer kinetics and enhance reversibility. As a result, the Sb-pZn-2920 anode shows exceptional Zn plating-stripping behaviours with ultralow overpotential of 31.7 mV for up to 1700 h at 2 mA cm−2 in symmetric cells and maintains stable charge-discharge cycling for 240 cycles at 20 mA cm−2 under ambient conditions in ZAB full cells. This work presents a facile and scalable strategy for constructing high-performance Zn anodes and offers valuable insights into the development of practical, durable and reversible ZABs. This work presents a novel strategy for designing high-performance zinc anodes, providing key insights into achieving highly reversible, stable and practical zinc-air batteries for next-generation energy storage.