Uniform Li Plating/Stripping within Ni Macropore Arrays Enabled by Regulated Electric Field Distribution for Ultra-Stable Li-Metal Anodes

Yang Yang; Jinfei Xiao; Chaoyue Liu; Dongjiang Chen; Hongbo Geng; Yufei Zhang; Jinbao Zhao; Cheng Chao Li; Weidong He

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2020.101089

Uniform Li Plating/Stripping within Ni Macropore Arrays Enabled by Regulated Electric Field Distribution for Ultra-Stable Li-Metal Anodes

iScience. 2020 May 22;23(5):101089. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101089. Epub 2020 Apr 21.

Authors

Yang Yang¹, Jinfei Xiao¹, Chaoyue Liu², Dongjiang Chen³, Hongbo Geng¹, Yufei Zhang¹, Jinbao Zhao², Cheng Chao Li⁴, Weidong He⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemical Engineering and Light Industry, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.
² State Key Lab of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, State-Province Joint Engineering Laboratory of Power Source Technology for New Energy Vehicle, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.
³ National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Advanced Composites in Special Environments Center for Composite Materials and Structures, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, China.
⁴ School of Chemical Engineering and Light Industry, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China. Electronic address: licc@gdut.edu.cn.
⁵ National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Advanced Composites in Special Environments Center for Composite Materials and Structures, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, China. Electronic address: weidong.he@hit.edu.cn.

Abstract

Although Li-metal anodes are extremely attractive owing to the ultrahigh theoretical specific capacity, the low Coulombic efficiency and severe safety hazards resulting from uncontrollable Li dendrites growth hinder their widespread implementation. Herein, we propose a novel design of Ni macropore arrays for the functional Li deposition host. Benefiting from the regulated electric field distribution, Li nucleation and growth can be well confined within conductive Ni macropores. Consequently, the Ni macropore array electrode exhibits stable Li deposition behavior, i.e., high Coulombic efficiency of above 97% over 400 cycles for 1.0 mAh cm^-2. Most importantly, the LiFePO₄ || Li-Ni macropore arrays full cell also shows greatly enhanced cycling stability (90.3 mAh g^-1 at 1 C after 700 cycles), holding great promise for high-performance rechargeable Li metal batteries.

Keywords: Electrochemistry; Energy Materials; Materials Characterization.