Steric Hindrance‐Guided Weak Coordination and Adsorption toward Dendrite‐Free and Long‐Life Aqueous Zinc Metal Batteries

ABSTRACT Aqueous zinc‐ion batteries (ZIBs) persistently encounter interface issues stemming from the parasitic reactions and dendrite growth, drastically compromising reversibility and cyclability. Improving the kinetics of Zn 2+ desolvation, homogenizing Zn 2+ flux and constructing water‐poor interface layers with rich deposition sites remain grand challenges for ZIBs. Herein, a weak interactions strategy from trace amounts of N‐acetyl‐L‐leucine (NAL) with steric hindrance was proposed to regulate the Zn 2+ solvation structure and interface micro‐environment. The weak NAL‐Zn 2+ interaction prevents excessive binding of NAL to Zn 2+ , thereby facilitating the decoupling of NAL and Zn 2+ at the electrode/electrolyte interface and promoting the migration and deposition kinetics of Zn 2+ . Moreover, the strong interaction between NAL in the Zn 2+ secondary solvation sheath and water molecules in the first solvation sheath promotes the Zn(H 2 O) 6 2+ desolvation. Furthermore, NAL forms a dynamic anchoring layer on the Zn(002) crystal plane through weak adsorption, which does not compete with Zn 2+ for active sites and induces the uniform and ordered deposition of Zn 2+ on the Zn(002) crystal plane. As a result, the Zn||Zn symmetric cell achieves stable cycling for 4250 h at 1 mA cm −2 and 1 mAh cm −2 , and maintains stability for 220 h even at 85.4% depth of discharge.