Free-Standing Copper Nanowire Network Current Collector for Improving Lithium Anode Performance.

Lithium metal is one of the most attractive anode materials for next-generation lithium batteries due to its high specific capacity and low electrochemical potential. However, the poor cycling performance and serious safety hazards, caused by the growth of dendritic and mossy lithium, has long hindered the application of lithium metal based batteries. Herein, we reported a rational design of free-standing Cu nanowire (CuNW) network to suppress the growth of dendritic lithium via accommodating the lithium metal in three-dimensional (3D) nanostructures. We demonstrated that as high as 7.5 mA h cm(-2) of lithium can be plated into the free-standing copper nanowire (CuNW) current collector without the growth of dendritic lithium. The lithium metal anode based on the CuNW exhibited high Coulombic efficiency (average 98.6% during 200 cycles) and outstanding rate performance owing to the suppression of lithium dendrite growth and high conductivity of CuNW network. Our results demonstrate that the rational nanostructural design of current collector could be a promising strategy to improve the performance of lithium metal anode enabling its application in next-generation lithium-metal based batteries.

[1]  Doron Aurbach,et al.  A short review of failure mechanisms of lithium metal and lithiated graphite anodes in liquid electrolyte solutions , 2002 .

[2]  B. Liaw,et al.  A review of lithium deposition in lithium-ion and lithium metal secondary batteries , 2014 .

[3]  Jae-Hun Kim,et al.  Metallic anodes for next generation secondary batteries. , 2013, Chemical Society reviews.

[4]  Terence J. Lozano,et al.  Failure Mechanism for Fast‐Charged Lithium Metal Batteries with Liquid Electrolytes , 2015 .

[5]  Guangyuan Zheng,et al.  Polymer nanofiber-guided uniform lithium deposition for battery electrodes. , 2015, Nano letters.

[6]  Rui Zhang,et al.  Dual-Phase Lithium Metal Anode Containing a Polysulfide-Induced Solid Electrolyte Interphase and Nanostructured Graphene Framework for Lithium-Sulfur Batteries. , 2015, ACS nano.

[7]  Alexej Jerschow,et al.  7Li MRI of Li batteries reveals location of microstructural lithium. , 2012, Nature materials.

[8]  B. Jang,et al.  Reviving rechargeable lithium metal batteries: enabling next-generation high-energy and high-power cells , 2012 .

[9]  B. Simon,et al.  Carbon materials for lithium-ion rechargeable batteries , 1999 .

[10]  Jean-Marie Tarascon,et al.  Li-O2 and Li-S batteries with high energy storage. , 2011, Nature materials.

[11]  M. Armand,et al.  Issues and challenges facing rechargeable lithium batteries , 2001, Nature.

[12]  Jun Liu,et al.  Dendrite-free lithium deposition via self-healing electrostatic shield mechanism. , 2013, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[13]  Corrigendum: Manipulating surface reactions in lithium–sulphur batteries using hybrid anode structures , 2014 .

[14]  Z. Takehara.  Future prospects of the lithium metal anode , 1997 .

[15]  Guangyuan Zheng,et al.  The synergetic effect of lithium polysulfide and lithium nitrate to prevent lithium dendrite growth , 2015, Nature Communications.

[16]  Yayuan Liu,et al.  Lithium-coated polymeric matrix as a minimum volume-change and dendrite-free lithium metal anode , 2016, Nature Communications.

[17]  Ya‐Xia Yin,et al.  Accommodating lithium into 3D current collectors with a submicron skeleton towards long-life lithium metal anodes , 2015, Nature Communications.

[18]  John B Goodenough,et al.  The Li-ion rechargeable battery: a perspective. , 2013, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[19]  Guangyuan Zheng,et al.  Interconnected hollow carbon nanospheres for stable lithium metal anodes. , 2014, Nature nanotechnology.

[20]  S. Chu,et al.  Ultrathin two-dimensional atomic crystals as stable interfacial layer for improvement of lithium metal anode. , 2014, Nano letters.

[21]  Li-Jun Wan,et al.  Lithium-sulfur batteries: electrochemistry, materials, and prospects. , 2013, Angewandte Chemie.

[22]  A. MacDowell,et al.  Detection of subsurface structures underneath dendrites formed on cycled lithium metal electrodes. , 2014, Nature materials.

[23]  D. Aurbach,et al.  Attempts to Improve the Behavior of Li Electrodes in Rechargeable Lithium Batteries , 2002 .

[24]  Benjamin J Wiley,et al.  The Growth Mechanism of Copper Nanowires and Their Properties in Flexible, Transparent Conducting Films , 2010, Advanced materials.

[25]  Z. Wen,et al.  Vinylene carbonate–LiNO3: A hybrid additive in carbonic ester electrolytes for SEI modification on Li metal anode , 2015 .

[26]  Yayuan Liu,et al.  Layered reduced graphene oxide with nanoscale interlayer gaps as a stable host for lithium metal anodes. , 2016, Nature nanotechnology.

[27]  Yang‐Kook Sun,et al.  Lithium-ion batteries. A look into the future , 2011 .

[28]  J. Tarascon,et al.  Lithium metal stripping/plating mechanisms studies: A metallurgical approach , 2006 .

[29]  Arumugam Manthiram,et al.  Stabilized Lithium-Metal Surface in a Polysulfide-Rich Environment of Lithium-Sulfur Batteries. , 2014, The journal of physical chemistry letters.

[30]  Guangyuan Zheng,et al.  Nanostructured sulfur cathodes. , 2013, Chemical Society reviews.

[31]  M. Stanley Whittingham,et al.  History, Evolution, and Future Status of Energy Storage , 2012, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[32]  Ji‐Guang Zhang,et al.  Lithium metal anodes for rechargeable batteries , 2014 .

[33]  Michel Armand,et al.  A new class of Solvent-in-Salt electrolyte for high-energy rechargeable metallic lithium batteries , 2013, Nature Communications.

[34]  Yi Cui,et al.  Composite lithium metal anode by melt infusion of lithium into a 3D conducting scaffold with lithiophilic coating , 2016, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[35]  L. Nazar,et al.  A highly ordered nanostructured carbon-sulphur cathode for lithium-sulphur batteries. , 2009, Nature materials.

[36]  Lynden A Archer,et al.  Stable lithium electrodeposition in liquid and nanoporous solid electrolytes. , 2014, Nature materials.