A Highly Reversible Zn Anode with Intrinsically Safe Organic Electrolyte for Long‐Cycle‐Life Batteries

Abstract

Dendrite and interfacial reactions have affected zinc (Zn) metal anodes for rechargeable batteries many years. Here, these obstacles are bypassed via adopting an intrinsically safe trimethyl phosphate (TMP)-based electrolyte to build a stable Zn anode. Along with cycling, pristine Zn foil is gradually converted to a graphene-analogous deposit via TMP surfactant and a Zn phosphate molecular template. This novel Zn anode morphology ensures long-term reversible plating/stripping performance over 5000 h, a rate capability of 5 mA cm^-2 , and a remarkably high Coulombic efficiency (CE) of ≈99.57% without dendrite formation. As a proof-of-concept, a Zn-VS₂ full cell demonstrates an ultralong lifespan, which provides an alternative for electrochemical energy storage devices.