Mechanical rolling formation of interpenetrated lithium metal/lithium tin alloy foil for ultrahigh-rate battery anode

Mintao Wan; Sujin Kang; Li Wang; Hyun-Wook Lee; Guangyuan Wesley Zheng; Yi Cui; Yongming Sun

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-14550-3

Mechanical rolling formation of interpenetrated lithium metal/lithium tin alloy foil for ultrahigh-rate battery anode

Nat Commun. 2020 Feb 11;11(1):829. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-14550-3.

Authors

Mintao Wan¹, Sujin Kang², Li Wang³, Hyun-Wook Lee², Guangyuan Wesley Zheng^{4

5}, Yi Cui^{6

7}, Yongming Sun⁸

Affiliations

¹ Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics (WNLO), Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, China.
² School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), 50 UNIST-gil, Ulsan, 44919, Korea.
³ Institute of Nuclear & New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
⁴ Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, A*STAR, 2 Fusionopolis Way, Innovis, Singapore, 138634, Singapore.
⁵ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore, 119260, Singapore.
⁶ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA. yicui@stanford.edu.
⁷ Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA, 94025, USA. yicui@stanford.edu.
⁸ Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics (WNLO), Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, China. yongmingsun@hust.edu.cn.

Abstract

To achieve good rate capability of lithium metal anodes for high-energy-density batteries, one fundamental challenge is the slow lithium diffusion at the interface. Here we report an interpenetrated, three-dimensional lithium metal/lithium tin alloy nanocomposite foil realized by a simple calendering and folding process of lithium and tin foils, and spontaneous alloying reactions. The strong affinity between the metallic lithium and lithium tin alloy as mixed electronic and ionic conducting networks, and their abundant interfaces enable ultrafast charger diffusion across the entire electrode. We demonstrate that a lithium/lithium tin alloy foil electrode sustains stable lithium stripping/plating under 30 mA cm^-2 and 5 mAh cm^-2 with a very low overpotential of 20 mV for 200 cycles in a commercial carbonate electrolyte. Cycled under 6 C (6.6 mA cm^-2), a 1.0 mAh cm^-2 LiNi_0.6Co_0.2Mn_0.2O₂ electrode maintains a substantial 74% of its capacity by pairing with such anode.