Texture Control of Commercial Zn Foils Prolongs Their Reversibility as Aqueous Battery Anodes

Abstract

Crystallography modulation of aqueous zinc metal anodes can effectively inhibit their dendrite growth and unfavorable side reactions. However, the ability to directly endow the commercial Zn foils with specific texture is still lacking. In this study, a grain-size-assisted cold-rolling approach is developed to reshape and unify the commercial Zn foils into strong (002) textured Zn. It is revealed that the grain size strongly affects the (002) texture formation during the plastic deformation. By proper annealing treatment, the grain sizes of commercial Zn foils are controlled at ∼30 μm, which favors the formation of strong (002) texture during the following cold-rolling process. The resultant (002) textured Zn foils show better resistance to side reactions and dendrite growth when used as aqueous metal anodes. The strong (002) texture endows the Zn anode with long cycling stability in Zn//Zn symmetric batteries (2800 h at 0.1 mA cm-2, 100 h at 10 mA cm-2) and Zn//porous carbon capacitors (6000 cycles at 2 A g-1). The strategy demonstrated in this work unifies the different textures of commercial Zn foils into strong (002) texture and provides a scalable pathway toward highly reversible Zn anodes for aqueous zinc-ion energy storage devices.