Recent progress and perspectives on highly utilized Zn metal anode - towards marketable aqueous Zn-ion batteries

Aqueous zinc ion batteries (AZIBs) are considered to have great potential for future energy storage systems. But according to performance researches reported up to the present time, AZIBs do not seem to be able to replace the dominant position of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) in large-scale energy storage systems in a short term. In addition to dendrites and side reactions, the unrealistic low zinc utilization ratio (ZUR) and excessive thickness of Zn anode which limit AZIBs' energy density are also the main factors that prevent AZIBs from commercialization. In today's booming energy storage market, developing practical AZIBs with highly utilized Zn metal anode and pushing it to the market, and then conducting technical iterations through market feedback will allow AZIBs to be truly developed rather than merely staying in research literatures. In this review, the current development situation and market prospects of AZIBs was analyzed in detail based on the actual energy storage systems market. The characteristics of different batteries were also discussed to confirm the application position of AZIBs. Besides of the dendrites and side reactions, this review focus on the industrialization issues of AZIBs. We summarize the impacts of factors such as current density, areal capacity, ZUR, electrode thickness on the AZIBs, and also propose formulas to more accurately estimate the relationship between them. It is also discussed here recent progresses and perspectives related to these issues. We hope that this review can inspire feasible ideas for fast promoting the commercialization of AZIBs.