Uniform Deposition and Effective Confinement of Lithium in Three-Dimensional Interconnected Microchannels for Stable Lithium Metal Anodes

Jingjing Zhang; Zhengkang Su; Junhong Jin; Shenglin Yang; Aishui Yu; Guang Li

doi:10.1021/acsami.1c09319

Uniform Deposition and Effective Confinement of Lithium in Three-Dimensional Interconnected Microchannels for Stable Lithium Metal Anodes

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2021 Aug 25;13(33):39311-39321. doi: 10.1021/acsami.1c09319. Epub 2021 Aug 9.

Authors

Jingjing Zhang¹, Zhengkang Su¹, Junhong Jin¹, Shenglin Yang¹, Aishui Yu², Guang Li¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China.
² Department of Chemistry, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Institute of New Energy, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China.

PMID: 34370433
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.1c09319

Abstract

Lithium dendrite formation has hindered the practical implementation of lithium metal batteries with higher energy densities compared with those of conventional lithium-ion batteries. Herein, a nanoconfinement strategy to access dendrite-free lithium metal anodes comprising three-dimensional (3D) hollow porous multi-nanochannel carbon fiber embedded with TiO₂ nanocrystals (HTCNF) is reported. The transport of the lithium ions is facilitated by the 3D architecture. Functioning as nanoseeds, the TiO₂ nanocrystals guide the lithium ions toward forming uniform deposits, which are further confined inside the hollow carbon fibers and the 3D HTCNF layer. Site-selective deposition coupled with the nanoconfinement of lithium metal modifies the Li plating/stripping behavior and effectively suppresses the dendrite growth. The HTCNF-Li cell delivers a stable cycling performance of 1300 h with a voltage hysteresis as low as 6 mV. The assembled HTCNF-Li//LiFePO₄ full cell displays a compelling rate performance and enhanced cycling stability with high capacity retention (90% after 400 cycles at 0.5 C). Our results demonstrate a new and potentially scalable route to resolve the lithium dendrite growth issue for enhanced electrochemical performances, which can be further extended to other metal battery systems.

Keywords: lithium ion transport; lithium metal anode; lithium metal battery; nano-confinement; uniform lithium deposition.