Anti-Corrosion and Reconstruction of Surface Crystal Plane for Zn Anodes by an Advanced Metal Passivation Technique

For the aqueous Zn-ion battery, dendrite formation, corrosion, and interfacial parasitic reactions are major issues, which greatly inhibits their practical application. How to develop a method of Zn construction or treatment to solve these issues for Zn anodes are still great challenges. Herein, a simple and cheap metal passivation technique is proposed for Zn anodes from a corrosion science perspective. Similar to the metal anti-corrosion engineering, the formed interfacial protective layer in a chemical way can sufficiently solve the corrosion issues. Furthermore, the proposed passivity approach can reconstruct Zn surface-preferred crystal planes, exposing more (002) planes and improving surface hydrophilicity, which inhibits the formation of Zn dendrites and hydrogen evolution effectively. As expected, the passivated Zn achieves outstanding cycling life (1914 h) with low voltage polarization (<40 mV). Even at 6 mA cm⁻² and 3 mA h cm⁻², it can achieve stable Zn deposition over 460 h. The treated Zn anode coupled with MnO₂ cathode shows prominently reinforced full batteries service life, making it a potential Zn anode candidate for excellent performance aqueous Zn-ion batteries. The proposed passivation approach provides a guideline for other metal electrodes preparation in various batteries and establishes the connections between corrosion science and batteries.