Turbulent Flow-Driven Synthesis of Graphene-Skinned Boron Nitride Heterostructures for Dendrite-Free Potassium Metal Batteries.

Sun, Zhifeng; Liu, Qian; Xia, Yuqi; Wu, Yuzhu; Wang, Wenhu; Wang, Tao; Hu, Yueming; Li, Weijia et al. · Adv Mater · 2025

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Potassium metal batteries are considered as promising candidates for next-generation energy storage systems. However, their practical development is hindered by the insufficient capacity output and persistent dendritic proliferation at the anode side. Here graphene-skinned hexagonal boron nitride powder is demonstrated synthesized via fluidized bed-chemical vapor deposition, realizing conformal growth of layer-controlled graphene (5-90 layers) over h-BN with atomically coupled heterointerfaces. Fluid dynamic simulations of fluidization environments in fluidized-bed reactors reveal that localized turbulence-driven precursor transport enables uniform powder fluidization and homogeneous graphene formation. Potassium metal electrodes fabricated with Gr-skinned h-BN powder modified Al current collector exhibit favorable cyclic stability (1050 h at 0.5 mA cm<sup>-2</sup>) and low nucleation overpotential (<7 mV). The polar hexagonal lattice of h-BN and high surface energy (43.27 mJ m<sup>-2</sup>) of graphene readily promote uniform potassium deposition via Frank-van der Merwe mode. This dual-scale approach, which integrates atomic-scale interface engineering with reactor-scale manufacture innovation, offers an appealing pathway toward industrial-level production of high-performance metal batteries.