A widely used nonionic surfactant with desired functional groups as aqueous electrolyte additives for stabilizing Zn anode

Aqueous Zn-ion batteries(AZIBs) have emerged as potential candidates for Li-ion batteries due to their intrinsic safety and high capacity.However,metallic Zn anodes encounter dendrite growth and water-induced corrosion,rendering poor stability and severe irreversibility at the electrode/electrolyte interface during cycling.To stabilize the Zn anode,we report a low-cost and effective nonionic surfactant,Tween-20 polymer,as an electrolyte additive for AZIBs.For Tween-20,sequential oxyethylene groups tended to be preferentially adsorbed on the Zn electrode to form a shielding layer for regulating uniform Zn nucleation.Moreover,the hydrophobic hendecyl chains prevented H_(2)O-induced corrosion on the Zn anode surface.Benefiting from the desired functional groups,when only trace amounts of Tween-20(0.050 g·L^(-1)) were used,the Zn anode displayed good cycling stability over 2170 h at10 mA·cm^(-2) and a high average Coulombic efficiency of98.94% over 1000 cycles.The Tween-20 polymer can also be effectively employed in MnO_(2)/Zn full batteries.Considering their toxicity,price and amount of usage,these surfactant additives provide a promising strategy for realizing the stability and reversibility of high-performance Zn anodes.