Surface‑Alloyed Nanoporous Zinc as Reversible and Stable Anodes for High‑Performance Aqueous Zinc‑Ion Battery

Metallic zinc(Zn)is one of the most attractive multivalent-metal anode materials in post-lithium batteries because of its high abundance,low cost and high theoretical capacity.However,it usually suffers from large voltage polarization,low Coulombic efficiency and high propensity for dendritic failure during Zn stripping/plating,hindering the practical application in aqueous rechargeable zinc-metal batteries(AR-ZMBs).Here we demonstrate that anionic surfactant-assisted in situ surface alloying of Cu and Zn remarkably improves Zn reversibility of 3D nanoporous Zn electrodes for potential use as high-performance AR-ZMB anode materials.As a result of the zincophilic ZnxCuy alloy shell guiding uniform Zn deposition with a zero nucleation overpotential and facilitating Zn stripping via the ZnxCuy/Zn galvanic couples,the self-supported nanoporous ZnxCuy/Zn electrodes exhibit superior dendrite-free Zn stripping/plating behaviors in ambient aqueous electrolyte,with ultralow polarizations under current densities up to 50 mA cm^(‒2),exceptional stability for 1900 h and high Zn utilization.This enables AR-ZMB full cells constructed with nanoporous ZnxCuy/Zn anode and K_(z)MnO_(2)cathode to achieve specific energy of as high as~430 Wh kg^(‒1)with~99.8%Coulombic efficiency,and retain~86%after long-term cycles for>700 h.