In Situ Reconstruction of Dendrite-Free Zinc Anode with Cu from Reactive Copper Phthalocyanine Interlayer

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries are considered one of the most promising energy storage technologies owing to their low cost, environmental friendliness, and safety, but they are chroni-cally perplexed by Zn dendrites, corrosion, passivation, and more. Herein, a reactive copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) is employed to rebuild a Zn anode with Cu, acting as a physical barrier and interfacial regulator to homogenize the Zn2+ flux for smooth Zn deposition and to restrain Zn corrosion. As a result, CuPc@Zn shows polarization voltages less than 145 mV within 16 mA cm-2 and bears a cumulative areal capacity of 1020 mA h cm-2 at 10 mA cm-2/20 mA h cm-2 and repeated Zn deposition/stripping processes over 1200 h at 1 mA cm-2/1 mA h cm-2. Besides, the cycling stability of the CuPc@Zn anode when pairing with a 9,10-anthraquinone cathode at 50 mA g-1 is greatly improved from 64.8% to similar to 100% after 360 cycles, about a 7.2 time increase in the life of a pure Zn-based battery, and the V2O5//CuPc@Zn batteries deliver 155 mA h g-1 (80% of its initial capacity) after 500 cycles at 2 A g-1, also surpassing V2O5//Zn batteries. This work demonstrates the superiority of the reactive organometallic interlayer in guarding the Zn anode and also increases metal anode protection in other batteries.