The low reversibility of Li deposition/stripping in conventional carbonate electrolytes hinders the development of lithium metal batteries. Herein, we proposed a combination of solvents with a moderate donor number (DN) and LiNO3 as the sole salt, which has rarely been attempted due to its low solubility or dissociation degree in common solvents. It is found that the DN value of solvents is highly correlated to the reversibility of Li deposition behavior when LiNO3 is applied as the sole salt. The combination of LiNO3 and solvents with moderate DN behaves like a quasi-concentrated electrolyte even at a common or moderate concentration, while neither the solvents with poor solubility and low dissociation for LiNO3 (which usually corresponds to a low DN) nor the solvents with high dissociation for LiNO3 (which usually corresponds to an overly high DN) can achieve a high reversibility for low conductivity or excessive solvent decomposition. As a result, a Coulombic efficiency as high as 99.6% for Li deposition/stripping is achieved with the optimized combination. We believe this work will give a better understanding of the role of anions and solvents in the regulation of the solvation structure, and DN can be utilized as an important guideline to sieve suitable solvents for LiNO3 as the main salt to exhibit intriguing properties beyond traditional cognition.
Keywords: donor number; lithium metal; lithium salt; solvation regulation; solvent.