Tribo-electrochemistry induced artificial solid electrolyte interface by self-catalysis

Abstract

Potassium (K) metal is a promising alkali metal anode for its high abundance. However, dendrite on K anode is a serious problem which is even worse than Li. Artificial SEI (ASEI) is one of effective routes for suppressing dendrite. However, there are still some issues of the ASEI made by the traditional methods, e.g. weak adhesion, insufficient/uneven reaction, which deeply affects the ionic diffusion kinetics and the effect of inhibiting dendrites. Herein, through a unique self-catalysis tribo-electrochemistry reaction, a continuous and compact protective layer is successfully constructed on K metal anode in seconds. Such a continuous and compact protective layer can not only improve the K+ diffusion kinetics, but also strongly suppress K dendrite formation by its hard mechanical properties derived from rigid carbon system, as well as the improved K+ conductivity and lowered electronic conductivity from the amorphous KF. As a result, the potassium symmetric cells exhibit stable cycles last more than 1000 h, which is almost 500 times that of pristine K.

A simple and effective host for sodium metal anode: a 3D-printed high pyrrolic-N doped graphene microlattice aerogel

“…Currently, a variety of approaches have been proposed to alleviate the problems of Na metal anodes such as optimizing the electrolyte with improved electrolyte additives, 14–18 introducing a protective layer, 19–22 constructing three-dimensional (3D) electrodes, 23,24 as well as alloy design to tune the Na metal surface chemistry. 10 However, these methods alone are insufficient to suppress volume expansion at current densities as high as 3.0 mA cm −2 and increase the interfacial impedance.…”

Coupling Low‐Tortuosity Carbon Matrix with Single‐Atom Chemistry Enables Dendrite‐Free Potassium‐Metal Anode

“…Also, this attractive cycling performance is either comparable to or superior to most previously reported values for K anode stabilized by different strategies in various electrolytes (Figure 4g). [ 21,22,24,25,31,43,46–54 ]…”

“…Although lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are ubiquitous in commercial applications ranging from low-powered wearables and medium-powered computing to megawatt-scale stationary storage, the abundance of lithium resources is limited in the construction of 3D host scaffolds, [21,22] application of solid-state electrolyte, [23] and artificial SEI/protective layers. [24,25] Among them, in situ and ex situ construction of SEI effectively pushed forward K anode engineering technique and alleviated certain aspects of the problems, while, the concept of reinforcing SEI falls short of the required electrode's ability that restrain the huge electrode volume change to prevent recurring dendriterelated issues during long-term cycling. As an alternative, developing 3D conductive scaffolds with K encapsulation is meritorious for dendrite-free composite K anode.…”

Quantitative Distribution Model of Dendrites in Li metal batteries

“…and 350 cycles (Li CP ) are characterized by SEM 51 . Figure 5D showed that the high-SDE substrate (Li CPA ) has a better impact on dendrite suppression than Li CP even Li CPA has long cycle.…”