Rui Pu, Qingmeng Wang, Jili Yue, Xirui Lu, Weizhang Wang, Tiantian Wen, Yi Yuan, Baihua Qu, Guangsheng Huang, Jingfeng Wang, Fusheng Pan

2026.4.2ACS Energy Letters

DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.5c04318

Abstract

Rechargeable magnesium batteries (RMBs) are next-generation energy storage systems, but rolled Mg anodes face challenges in fabricating ultrathin Mg foil and achieving inhomogeneous Mg plating/stripping. Herein, a Mg foil (∼10 μm) was deposited onto a Cu substrate (Mg@Cu) via vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE), exhibiting (002)-dominated hexagonal prism arrays. Notably, the Mg@Cu||Mg@Cu symmetric cell achieves a polarization of ∼150 mV cycled over 1000 h under a Mg utilization of 52%. The basal-plane-rich structure in Mg@Cu not only homogenizes Mg 2+ distribution but also facilitates Mg 2+ transport kinetics, thereby enabling more uniform Mg plating/stripping. Therefore, the Mg@Cu||Mo 6 S 8 full cell maintains 76.6 mAh g –1 after 1500 cycles at 1 C, outperforming the case using rolled Mg foil (67.2 mAh g –1 ) in terms of capacity retention. This work offers a feasible method to prepare Mg foil avoiding complex processing, which can shed light on the development of a Mg anode for rechargeable magnesium batteries.

Citation format

PU, Rui, et al. Magnesium foil composed of (002) facet dominated hexagonal prism arrays prepared by vacuum thermal evaporation as anode for rechargeable magnesium batteries. ACS Energy Letters, 2026.