Electrochemistry Communications (Oct 2019)

Partly lithiated graphitic carbon foam as 3D porous current collectors for dendrite-free lithium metal anodes

  • Tao Chen,
  • Weishang Jia,
  • Zeyu Yao,
  • Yuchi Liu,
  • Xin Guan,
  • Kewei Li,
  • Julan Xiao,
  • Hongli Liu,
  • Ying Chen,
  • Yong Zhou,
  • Daming Sun,
  • Jingze Li

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 107

Abstract

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Though lithium (Li) metal is an ideal anode material for next-generation rechargeable batteries, its application has been seriously limited by security and cyclability issues as the result of uncontrollable Li dendrite growth. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a method to suppress Li dendrite growth using melamine-derived 3D porous carbon foam decorated with graphite intercalation compounds of Li (GICs-Li) as a Li host. GICs-Li, with excellent lithiophilicity, ensures uniform Li deposition, while the 3D porous carbon foam, with ultrahigh porosity and enlarged surface area, provides pathway for Li+ transport, accommodates Li deposition as well as reduces practical current density. Thus, dendrite-free morphology of composite Li anode is realized without additional heterogeneous lithiophilic particles. In symmetric cell configuration, the composite Li anode performs stably for 500 cycles at 10 mAcm−2. In full cell configuration with Li4Ti5O12 (LTO), it exhibits a large capacity retention rate (~91%) after 700 cycles at 1.0C. Keywords: Partly lithiated graphitic carbon foam, Lithium metal anode, 3D porous current collector, Lithium dendrite, Graphite intercalation compounds of Li