posted on 2022-12-13, 04:03authored byMiao Zhu, Chen Yin, Qian Wang, Yujing Zhang, Henghui Zhou, Lianming Tong, Jin Zhang, Limin Qi
Lithium
metal is the most promising anode for lithium batteries,
but the growth of lithium dendrites leads to rapid attenuation of
battery capacity and a series of safety problems during the plating/stripping
process. Utilization of carbon materials for improving the Li metal
anode stability represents a feasible strategy; particularly, the
high affinity for lithium endows graphdiyne (GDY) with a promising
capability for stabilizing Li metal anodes. Herein, vertically aligned
GDY nanowalls (NWs) were uniformly grown on a copper foil, which allowed
for dendrite-free, columnar deposition of lithium, desired for a stable
Li metal anode. The highly lithiophilic GDY NWs afforded plentiful
and evenly distributed active sites for Li nucleation as well as uniform
distribution of Li-ion flux for Li growth, resulting in smooth, columnar
Li deposition. The resultant Li metal electrode based on the Cu-GDY
NWs was able to cycle stably for 500 cycles at 1 mA cm–2 and 2 mA h cm–2 with a high Coulombic efficiency
of 99.2% maintained. A symmetric battery assembled by lithium-loaded
Cu-GDY NWs (Cu-GDY NWs@Li) showed a long lifespan over 1000 h at 1
mA cm–2 and 1 mA h cm–2. Furthermore,
a full cell assembled by Cu-GDY NWs@Li and LiFePO4 was
able to cycle stably for 200 cycles at a high current of 5 C, indicating
the potential applications in practical Li metal batteries at high
rates. This work demonstrated great potential of GDY-based materials
toward applications in Li metal batteries of high safety and high
energy density.