Bubble-Sheet-Like Interface Design with an Ultrastable Solid Electrolyte Layer for High-Performance Dual-Ion Batteries

Adv Mater. 2017 May;29(17). doi: 10.1002/adma.201606805. Epub 2017 Feb 22.

Abstract

In this work, a bubble-sheet-like hollow interface design on Al foil anode to improve the cycling stability and rate performance of aluminum anode based dual-ion battery is reported, in which, a carbon-coated hollow aluminum anode is used as both anode materials and current collector. This anode structure can guide the alloying position inside the hollow nanospheres, and also confine the alloy sizes within the hollow nanospheres, resulting in significantly restricted volumetric expansion and ultrastable solid electrolyte interface (SEI). As a result, the battery demonstrates an excellent long-term cycling stability within 1500 cycles with ≈99% capacity retention at 2 C. Moreover, this cell displays an energy density of 169 Wh kg-1 even at high power density of 2113 W kg-1 (10 C, charge and discharge within 6 min), which is much higher than most of conventional lithium ion batteries. The interfacial engineering strategy shown in this work to stabilize SEI layer and control the alloy forming position could be generalized to promote the research development of metal anodes based battery systems.

Keywords: aluminum anodes; dual-ion batteries; hollow nanostructures; solid electrolyte interfaces.