Dendrite growth and side reactions occurring in Zn anodes hinder the development and practical application of aqueous Zn-ion batteries. Herein, for the first time, we demonstrated the use of ligand-protected Cu nanoclusters as Zn plating/stripping mediators to construct dendrite-free Zn anodes. The abundant polar functional groups (–COOH, –NH₂, and –CO–NH–) on the peripheral ligands modulated the solvation structure and regulated the transport of Zn²⁺, whereas the zincophilic Cu cores functioned as nucleating agents to guide the uniform nucleation and plating of Zn. Using such bifunctional CuNCs, the asymmetric cell achieves a coulombic efficiency of 99.40% for over 1000 cycles, and the symmetric cell exhibits low voltage hysteresis and superior cycling over 400 h with a high depth of discharge of 40%. These findings may contribute to the design of multifunctional mediators at the atomic level.

中文翻译：

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谷胱甘肽保护铜纳米团簇实现高度可逆的 Zn 电沉积，用于水性 Zn 离子电池


Zn 负极中发生的枝晶生长和副反应阻碍了水系 Zn 离子电池的开发和实际应用。在这里，我们首次展示了使用配体保护的 Cu 纳米簇作为 Zn 电镀/剥离介质来构建无树突 Zn 阳极。外周配体上丰富的极性官能团（–COOH、–NH₂ 和 –CO–NH–）调节溶剂化结构并调节 Zn²⁺ 的转运，而亲锌 Cu 核心则作为成核剂发挥作用，引导 Zn 的均匀成核和电镀。使用这种双功能 CuNCs，不对称电池在 1000 多次循环中实现了 99.40% 的库仑效率， 对称电池表现出低电压磁滞和 400 h 以上的出色循环，放电深度高达 40%。这些发现可能有助于原子水平多功能介质的设计。