Suppressing Lithium Dendrite Growth with a Single-Component Coating

Haodong Liu; Hongyao Zhou; Byoung-Sun Lee; Xing Xing; Matthew Gonzalez; Ping Liu

doi:10.1021/acsami.7b08198

Suppressing Lithium Dendrite Growth with a Single-Component Coating

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 Sep 13;9(36):30635-30642. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b08198. Epub 2017 Aug 31.

Authors

Haodong Liu¹, Hongyao Zhou¹, Byoung-Sun Lee¹, Xing Xing¹, Matthew Gonzalez¹, Ping Liu¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of NanoEngineering, University of California San Diego , La Jolla, California 92093, United States.

PMID: 28829121
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b08198

Abstract

A single-component coating was formed on lithium (Li) metal in a lithium iodide/organic carbonate [dimethyl carbonate (DMC) and ethylene carbonate (EC)] electrolyte. LiI chemically reacts with DMC to form lithium methyl carbonate (LMC), which precipitates and forms the chemically homogeneous coating layer on the Li surface. This coating layer is shown to enable dendrite-free Li cycling in a symmetric Li∥Li cell even at a current density of 3 mA cm^-2. Adding EC to DMC modulates the formation of LMC, resulting in a stable coating layer that is essential for long-term Li cycling stability. Furthermore, the coating can enable dendrite-free cycling after being transferred to common LiPF₆/carbonate electrolytes, which are compatible with metal oxide cathodes.

Keywords: LiI; chemically homogeneous coating; dendrite-free; lithium methyl carbonate; lithium-metal anode; single-component coating.