Naked metallic skin for homo-epitaxial deposition in lithium metal batteries.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36894583.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-36934-x and PMC identifier 9998607.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Regulating the morphology of lithium plating is the key to extending the cycle life of lithium metal batteries. Fatal dendritic growth is closely related to out-of-plane nucleation on the lithium metal surface. Herein, we report a nearly perfect lattice match between the lithium metal foil and lithium deposits by removing the native oxide layer using simple bromine-based acid-base chemistry. The naked lithium surface induces homo-epitaxial lithium plating with columnar morphologies and lower overpotentials. Using the naked lithium foil, the lithium-lithium symmetric cell maintains stable cycling at 10 mA cm<sup>-2</sup> for more than 10,000 cycles, and the full-cell paired with LiFePO<sub>4</sub> with high areal capacity of 3.3 mAh cm<sup>-2</sup> and practical N/P ratio of 2.5 exhibits 86% capacity retention after 300 cycles. This study elucidates the usefulness of controlling the initial surface state to facilitate homo-epitaxial lithium plating for sustainable cycling of lithium metal batteries.