Avoiding short circuits from zinc metal dendrites in anode by backside-plating configuration.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27263471.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms11801 and PMC identifier 4897743.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Portable power sources and grid-scale storage both require batteries combining high energy density and low cost. Zinc metal battery systems are attractive due to the low cost of zinc and its high charge-storage capacity. However, under repeated plating and stripping, zinc metal anodes undergo a well-known problem, zinc dendrite formation, causing internal shorting. Here we show a backside-plating configuration that enables long-term cycling of zinc metal batteries without shorting. We demonstrate 800 stable cycles of nickel-zinc batteries with good power rate (20 mA cm(-2), 20 C rate for our anodes). Such a backside-plating method can be applied to not only zinc metal systems but also other metal-based electrodes suffering from internal short circuits.