Xl30 sirion

The morphology of the prepared G&B‐S@Zn and bare Zn electrodes were characterized by SEM (FEI XL30 Sirion) at an accelerating voltage of 10 kV. The morphology of Zn deposition and after cycling were also obtained. EDS elemental maps were used to define the distribution of elements. The microstructures of the products were determined by TEM (FEI Tecnai G2 F30). AFM (Bruker Multimode 8 with a Nanoscope V controller) was used to further understand the morphology of the G&B‐S@Zn and bare Zn. Bruker Alpha FT‐IR spectrometer (ATR‐Ge, 1000–4000 cm⁻¹) were recorded on FT‐IR spectra. XPS measurements characterized the chemical composition of the G&B‐S@Zn sample on a spectrometer (PerkinElmer PHI 1600 ESCA) with Al Kα radiation (hv = 1486.6 eV). XRD (Bruker D8 Advance) with CuKα radiation range 5°–70°. The contact angle test (OCA20, Dataphysics, Germany) was characterized the wettability between the electrolyte and the G&B‐S interfacial layer. In situ DEMS (Hidden HPR‐40) was used to monitor the hydrogen evolution rate (R_H) during the plating/stripping of symmetric cells. In situ XRD test was used to investigate the Zn deposition process. QCM‐D (Biolin Scientific) was employed to characterize the mechanical properties of the G&B‐S film.

The morphology and the microstructure were studied using SEM (FEI, XL30 Sirion) and TEM (FEI, Tecnai G2 F20 X-TWIN). The specific surface area was characterized from nitrogen adsorption–desorption measurement (Micromeritics, ASAP 2020). ICP-OES was conducted using a Thermo Scientific ICAP 6300 Duo View Spectrometer.