Electrolyte Additive Strategies for Suppression of Zinc Dendrites in Aqueous Zinc-Ion Batteries

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) with metal zinc as the anode possess the features of safety, environmental friendliness, and high specific capacity, which have attracted a great deal of attention in the past few years. The accompanying zinc dendrites are an important problem that endangers the battery performance. Therefore, the extensive research on the suppression strategies of Zn dendrites reflects a positive effect on improving the performance of ZIBs. In particular, the electrolyte additives (EAs) approach is considered a simple, reliable, and low-cost strategy to address the zinc dendritic issues and can inhibit or alleviate the growth of zinc dendrites while facilitating the amelioration of adverse reactions. In this review, the principles and processes of zinc dendrites, corrosion passivation, and hydrogen evolution side reactions on zinc anodes of ZIBs are firstly categorized. Then, the mitigation and inhibition of zinc dendrites and side reactions via different kinds of EAs are elaborated according to the regulation strategies of EAs, which provides an overview of the research on EAs conducted in recent years and proposed strategies to solve zinc dendrites and other problems. Finally, a reasonable outlook on the future improvement and development of EAs for ZIBs is described, which could provide some guidance for the evolution and design of EAs in the future.