Superlithiophilic Amorphous SiO₂–TiO₂ Distributed into Porous Carbon Skeleton Enabling Uniform Lithium Deposition for Stable Lithium Metal Batteries

Abstract

Lithium (Li) metal anodes have garnered increasing interest in recent years as its high theoretical capacity and low electrochemical potential promises a myriad of opportunities for various applications. However, one critical issue to overcome is the inhomogeneous deposition of Li+ during the plating and stripping process. This inhomogeneous deposition could result in uncontrollable dendrite growth, further leading to poor coulombic efficiency, shorter lifecycles, and safety concerns due to internal short circuit and thermal runaways. To address these issues, a 3D porous core–shell fiber scaffold is presented, comprising of well‐dispersed SiO2, TiO2, and carbon, as superlithiophilic host materials for lithium anodes. The amorphous SiO2 and TiO2 allow for controllable nucleation and deposition of metal Li inside the porous core–shell fiber even at ultrahigh current densities of 10 mA cm−2. In addition, the interconnected conductive fiber with high porosity enables good electrical conductivity with fast ion transport and excellent mechanical strength to withstand massive Li loading during repeated cycles of stripping and plating. As a result, excellent cycling performance and high rate capability are observed in both symmetric cells and full cells, highlighting the feasibility of the proposed Li anode composite.

Revealing the role of crystal orientation of protective layers for stable zinc anode

“…Metal affinity is a key criterion to judge the applicable functions (guiding or restricting). However, taking titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) for example, it can be used both for modification of current collectors and protection of metal anodes according to previous reports 15 – 17 . These results seem contradictory because good metal affinity is required when TiO 2 is used as a decoration on current collectors to homogenize metal deposition while low metal affinity is necessary if it is served as a protective layer 18 , 19 .…”

NiFeRu Layered Double Hydroxide and Its Derivatives Supported on Graphite Foam as Binder-Free Cathode for Nonaqueous Li-O2 Batteries

“…Among various available batteries, Li-O 2 batteries (LOBs), which are also called Li-air batteries (LABs), have the highest theoretical specific energy of 3,505 Wh kg −1 . This specific energy is ∼10 times that of Li-ion batteries (Bruce et al, 2012) and higher than other Li metal batteries (Xue et al, 2019;Sun et al, 2020). Therefore, LOBs have attracted immense interest since 1996 as the "holy grail" of batteries (Abraham and Jiang, 1996).…”

Lithium metal anodes: Present and future

“…In order to achieve uniform Li deposition, Xue et al designed a composite porous core-shell carbon fiber with evenly coated by mixed SiO 2 and TiO 2 hybrid, as a super lithiophilic host materials for lithium anodes. As a result, the addition of amorphous SiO 2 and TiO 2 offer controllable nucleation and deposition of metal Li inside the porous core-shell fiber even at ultrahigh current densities of 10 mA cm −2 [131] . As an ionic conductor framework ( Fig.…”