Flexible and Free-Standing Ti₃C₂T_x MXene@Zn Paper for Dendrite-Free Aqueous Zinc Metal Batteries and Nonaqueous Lithium Metal Batteries

Dendrite growth of metal anodes is one of the key hindrances for both secondary aqueous metal batteries and nonaqueous metal batteries. In this work, a freestanding Ti3C2Tx MXene@Zn paper is designed as both zinc metal anode and lithium metal anode host to address the issue. The binder-free Ti3C2Tx MXene@Zn paper exhibits merits of good mechanical flexibility, high electronic conductivity, hydrophilicity, and lithiophilicity. The crystal growth mechanism of Zn metal on common Zn foil and Ti3C2Tx MXene@Zn composite is also studied. It is found that the Ti3C2Tx MXene@Zn paper can effectively suppress the dendrite growth of Zn, enabling reversible and fast Zn plating/stripping kinetics in an aqueous electrolyte. Moreover, the Ti3C2Tx MXene@Zn paper can be used as a 3D host for a lithium metal anode. In this host, Zn is utilized as a nucleation agent to suppress the Li dendrite growth. The freestanding Ti3C2Tx MXene@Zn@Li anode exhibits superior reversibility with high Coulombic efficiency (97.69% over 600 cycles at 1.0 mA cm–2) and low polarization compared with the Cu@Li anode. These findings may be useful for the design of dendrite-free metal-based energy storage systems.