Lithium (Li) metal has been considered to be the most promising anode material for next-generation rechargeable batteries. Unfortunately, the hazards induced by dendrite growth and volume fluctuation hinder its commercialized application. Here, a three-dimensional (3D) current collector composed of a vertically aligned Cu2O nanowire that is tightly coated with a polydopamine protective layer is developed to solve the encountered issues of lithium metal batteries (LMBs). The Cu2O nanowire arrays (Cu2O NWAs) provide abundant lithiophilic sites for inducing Li nucleation selectively to form a thin Li layer around the nanowires and direct subsequent Li deposition. The well-defined nanochannel works well in confining the Li growth spatially and buffering the volume change during the repeated cycling. The PDA coatings adhered onto the outline of the Cu2O NWAs serve as the artificial solid electrolyte interface to isolate the electrode and electrolyte and retain the interfacial stability. Moreover, the increased specific area of copper foam (CF) can dissipate the local current density and further suppress the growth of Li dendrites. As a result, CF@Cu2O NWAs@PDA realizes a dendrite-free morphology and the assembled symmetrical batteries can work stably for over 1000 h at 3 mA cm-2. When CF@Cu2O NWAs@PDA is coupled with a LiFePO4 cathode, the full cells exhibit improved cycle stability and rate performance.
Keywords: Cu2O nanowire array; artificial solid electrolyte; conformal growth; dendrite suppression; lithium metal anode.