A High-Surface-Area Carbon-Coated 3D Nickel Nanomesh for Li-O2 Batteries

Nanostructured electrodes show great promises for application in batteries and could improve their energy and power density. Herein, a carbon-coated 3D Ni nanomesh was used as an air cathode for non-aqueous Li-air (O-2) battery applications. A 3 mu m thick 3D Ni nanomesh was fabricated, showing an excellent surface area/footprint area ratio (90 cm(2):1 cm(2)) and uniformly distributed pores, on which a conformal amorphous carbon coating was applied for the first time. This carbon-coated 3D Ni nanomesh showed an approximately 100 times larger charge-footprint capacity than that of the glassy carbon electrode. Owing to its tunable properties, a capacity higher than 6 mAh cm(-2) could be achieved for a carbon-coated 3D Ni nanomesh with a thickness of 100 mu m, whereas the practical capacities of current air electrodes are in the range of 2 mAh cm(-2).