Insights into micro-sized irregular Zn powders as anode materials in aqueous Zn-ion batteries

Aqueous Zn-ion batteries (AZIBs) have garnered significant attention in recent years owing to their high energy density, low cost, and environmental friendliness. Compared to Zn foil, Zn powders offer distinct advantages for commercial batteries, including facile industrial production, high utilization rate, and low negative/positive (N/P) mass ratio. However, the large exposed surface area of powder anodes renders them more susceptible to severe dendrite growth, corrosion, and hydrogen evolution reactions than planar Zn foil. This work comparatively investigates two typical commercial Zn powders – spherical Zn (S–Zn) and irregular Zn (I–Zn) – as anodes through comprehensive structural and electrochemical characterization. Compared to the widely used S–Zn powders, the large I–Zn powders exhibit reduced side reactions and promote the formation of a porous structure in the electrode. This allows enough interspace for Zn ions to deposit uniformly inside the anode, effectively suppressing the growth of dendrites and by-products. When integrated with carbon black powders via the ball-milling method, the I–Zn enables stable cycling exceeding 1000 h at 1 mA cm⁻² and 1 mAh cm⁻² in the symmetric cells. Furthermore, the I-Zn/C||NVO full cell demonstrates excellent cycling performance for 1000 cycles with 65.7 % of the remaining capacity. These results promote the wide use of low-cost I–Zn powders in practical AZIBs.

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