January 30, 2025
Journal Article

Three-dimensional polymeric-scaffold-based current collector for lithium metal anode toward high energy density batteries

Abstract

The practical applications of high energy density rechargeable lithium (Li) metal batteries have been impeded by the intrinsic issues of Li metal anode (LMA) including high reactivity with electrolyte and dendritic formation. Conventional LMAs consisting of a Li layer on the two-dimensional copper (Cu) foil as current collector lead to additional loss in specific energy density since Cu is non-faradaic and one of the heavy metals, and bring the formidable loss of the areal capacity due to the formation of solid electrolyte interphase and “dead” Li. The “hostless” feature of LMAs induces more issues like volume expansion and limited Li utilization. To address these problems, a three-dimensional (3D) polymeric scaffold with thin film Cu coating is designed and fabricated in a facile method. Benefiting from this unique material/structural, the current collector consists of optimally heat-treated 3D-structured Cu-coated polyimide (HT-Cu@PI) membrane enables more uniform morphology of electrochemically deposited Li on HT-Cu@PI by uniform/continuous Li-ion transport pathway. It also leads to a significant increase in the gravimetric/volumetric energy densities of LMBs by allowing more Li deposition in a fixed weight/volume of LMAs. Therefore, this new LMA structure will accelerate the practical application of the high energy density LMBs.

Published: January 30, 2025

Citation

Kim J., H. Jia, K. Koirala, D. Liu, A. Simmons, M.H. Engelhard, and R.A. Ahmed, et al. 2024. Three-dimensional polymeric-scaffold-based current collector for lithium metal anode toward high energy density batteries. ACS Energy Letters 9, no. 3:919-926. PNNL-SA-193434. doi:10.1021/acsenergylett.3c02752