Fatigue-Resistant Interfacial Layer for Safe Lithium Metal Batteries

The plating/stripping of Li dendrites can fracture the static solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) and cause significant dynamic volume variations in the Li anode, which give rise to poor cyclability and severe safety hazards. Herein, a tough polymer with a slide-ring structure was designed as a self-adaptive interfacial layer for Li anodes. The slide-ring polymer with a dynamically crosslinked network moves freely while maintaining its toughness and fracture resistance, which allows it can to dissipate the tension induced by Li dendrites on the interphase layer. Moreover, the slide-ring polymer is highly stretchable, elastic, and displays an ultrafast self-healing ability, which allows even pulverized Li to remain coalesced without disintegrating upon consecutive cycling. The Li anodes demonstrate greatly improved suppression of Li dendrite formation, as evidenced by the high critical current density (6 mA cm(-2)) and stable cycling for the full cells with high-areal capacity LiFePO4, high-voltage NCM, and S cathodes.

Automated summary

By designing a polymer with a slide-ring structure, the cycling performance and safety of lithium anodes can be significantly improved, leading to the suppression of lithium dendrite formation and demonstrating good self-healing properties.