Hierarchical Confinement Effect with Zincophilic and Spatial Traps Stabilized Zn-Based Aqueous Battery

Zn-based aqueous batteries (ZABs) have beenregarded as promising candidates for safe and large-scale energystorage in the "post-Li" era. However, kinetics and stabilityproblems of Zn capture cannot be concomitantly regulated,especially at high rates and loadings. Herein, a hierarchicalconfinement strategy is proposed to design zincophilic and spatialtraps through a host of porous Co-embedded carbon cages(denoted as CoCC). The zincophilic Co sites act as preferrednucleation sites with low nucleation barriers (within 0.5 mA hcm-2), and the carbon cage can further spatially confine Zn deposition (within 5.0 mA h cm-2). Theoretical simulations andin situ/ex situstructural observations reveal the hierarchical spatial confinement by the elaborated all-in-one network (within 12 mA hcm-2). Consequently, the elaborate strategy enables a dendrite-free behavior with excellent kinetics (low overpotential ofca.65mVat a high rate of 20 mA cm-2) and stable cycle life (over 800 cycles), pushing forward the next-generation high-performance ZABs