Carbon nanomaterials for highly stable Zn anode: Recent progress and future outlook

Aqueous zinc-ion battery has readily showed its cutting edges as one of the most promising energy storage systems due to high theoretical capacity and good environmental benignancy. Issues in particular at the anode side encompassing rampant dendrite growth, severe corrosion and side reactions otherwise impede the pragmatic applications. Carbon nanomaterials have been widely employed to protect Zn anode benefiting from their collective merits. Nevertheless, there has been a lack of comprehensive reviews thus far on covering the strategic solutions of Zn anode stabilization with the aid of nano-carbons. This article summarizes the state-of-the-art knowledge in designing concepts, mechanism investigations and device performances of Zn anode protection strategies based on carbon nanomaterials. Future perspectives and key challenges in this emerging field are included at the end.