Stabilization of Zinc Metal Anodes with Polyacrylamide as an Electrolyte Additive

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries are considered as a promising energy storage system due to their low cost and high safety. The zinc metal can be directly used as the anode of aqueous zinc ion batteries because of its high theoretical volume-specific capacity and low redox potential. However,the zinc metal anode has problems such as self-corrosion and zinc dendrite growth,which seriously shorten the battery cycle life and restricts its practical application. In this work,a polymer polyacrylamide (PAM)was designed as an electrolyte additive for zinc ion batteries,and it was found that the batteries showed the optimal cycling performance in the electrolyte system with 2 g / L PAM,and the zinc symmetric batteries remains steady after 2 800 h at 5 mA / cm2 and 1 mAh / cm2 . Further electrochemical tests and SEM characterization demonstrated that the PAM additive was able to inhibit metallic zinc dendrites and mitigate zinc electrode corrosion. This work provides a new idea for designing high-performance of aqueous electrolyte additives through functional electrolyte additives. © 2024 Cailiao Daobaoshe/ Materials Review. All rights reserved.