Advanced Characterization Techniques on Mechanism Understanding and Effect Evaluation in Zinc Anode Protection

The growing environmental pollution issues and continuous energy dilemma call for high-performance energy storage systems (ESSs). While the inevitable safety concerns appear and restrict the application of lithium-ion batteries in large-scale ESSs. Contrastively, zinc ion batteries (ZIBs) attract increasing attention due to the inherent advantages of high safety, low cost, and environmental friendliness. However, the poor stability and reversibility of Zn anodes bring severe difficulty for its practical application. Considerable efforts are devoted in the anode modification, such as electrolyte adjustment, interfacial engineering, and anode structure design, but there is still a fuzzy field concerning the reaction process, regulation mechanism, and modified effect. Reviewing the history, the development of various electrodes greatly depends on the breakthrough in advanced characterization technologies, while the summarizations of technological advances in the Zn anode are still deficient. Hence, this review concentrates on the recent progress in various characterization techniques and related strategies of anode protection. The information is especially highlighted that each technique can offer the crucial or auxiliary role they play in proving specific issues. Furthermore, the opinions on current limitations and future directions of common characterization techniques are also discussed in detail, aiming to give a comprehensive perspective in designing advanced zinc anodes. The significant role of advanced characterization technologies in boosting zinc ion batteries is reviewed. The techniques aiming to interface and electrolyte characterization are introduced from four aspects: degradation mechanism study, plating behavior observation, modifying principle analysis, and reasonable effectiveness evaluation.image