3 years ago

Interfacial Chemistry Regulation via a Skin-Grafting Strategy Enables High-Performance Lithium-Metal Batteries

Interfacial Chemistry Regulation via a Skin-Grafting Strategy Enables High-Performance Lithium-Metal Batteries
Thomas E. Mallouk, Yuming Zhao, Yue Gao, Qingquan Huang, Donghai Wang, Yuguang C. Li
The lithium (Li) metal anode suffers severe interfacial instability from its high reactivity toward liquid electrolytes, especially carbonate-based electrolytes, resulting in poor electrochemical performance of batteries that use 4 V high-capacity cathodes. We report a new skin-grafting strategy that stabilizes the Li metal–liquid electrolyte interface by coating the Li metal surface with poly((N-2,2-dimethyl-1,3-dioxolane-4-methyl)-5-norbornene-exo-2,3-dicarboximide), a chemically and electrochemically active polymer layer. This layer, composed of cyclic ether groups with a stiff polycyclic main chain, serves as a grafted polymer skin on the Li metal anode not only to incorporate ether-based polymeric components into the solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) but also to accommodate Li deposition/dissolution under the skin in a dendrite/moss-free manner. Consequently, a Li-metal battery employing a Li metal anode with the grafted skin paired with LiNi0.5Co0.2Mn0.3O2 cathode has a 90.0% capacity retention after 400 charge/discharge cycles and a capacity of 1.2 mAh/cm2 in a carbonate-based electrolyte. This proof-of-concept study provides a new direction for regulating the interfacial chemistry of Li metal anodes and for enabling high-performance Li-metal batteries.

Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jacs.7b06437

DOI: 10.1021/jacs.7b06437

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