ZnO/Carbon Shell/Carbon Cloth as a Stable Host for High Li-Content Anodes

Among all energy storage systems, lithium metal batteries (LMBs) show great advantages in terms of energy density. Nevertheless, the challenges of lithium metal anodes, namely, dendrite formation and low Coulombic efficiency, hinder the practical application of LMBs. In this work, we used the ZnO/ carbon shell/carbon cloth as a host for the lithium metal anode. The introduction of ZnO sites reduces the nucleation barrier of lithium deposition, and the existence of a 3D current collector alleviates the volume change during lithium plating/stripping. In addition, the combination of ZnO/C and 3D carbon cloth decreases the local current density and contributes to uniform lithium plating/stripping. The half cells assembled with modified carbon cloth electrodes cycle for more than 125 cycles with a high Coulombic efficiency of 99.34%, even under a high areal capacity of 6 mA h cm-2. By and large, our work provides a simple and effective strategy to modify the current collector for high Li-content anodes.

Automated summary

In this work, a method to improve lithium metal anodes is proposed, where ZnO sites are introduced into carbon shell/carbon cloth to reduce the nucleation barrier of lithium deposition. The 3D current collector alleviates the volume change during lithium plating/stripping and the combination of ZnO/C and 3D carbon cloth contributes to uniform lithium plating/stripping. The modified carbon cloth electrodes demonstrate high Coulombic efficiency of 99.34% even under high areal capacity.