Challenges of Lithium Metal Anode Enlightened from 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three scientists who have made great contributions in discovery of lithium-ion batteries(LIBs). The LIBs with graphite as anode have dominated the rechargeable battery markets of portable electronics and electric vehicles(EVs). For the next-generation batteries, high energy density is the important trend of development. Thus lithium metal is considered as the most promising anode owing to its highest theoretical capacity and the lowest electrochemical potential. However, the severe safety concerns hinder its practical application. The uncontrollable growth of lithium dendrites leads to capacity decay, low Coulombic efficiency, possible short circuit and thermal runaway. In this perspective, various methods to protect Li metal anode have been analyzed. The development of solid-state electrolytes(SSEs) and the role of lithium anode in SSEs are discussed. Several new strategies for improving the safety of Li metal based batteries are proposed to realize the real market-oriented security applications.     

Reversible Li Plating on Graphite Anodes through Electrolyte Engineering for Fast-Charging Batteries

The difficulties to identify the rate-limiting step cause the lithium (Li) plating hard to be completely avoided on graphite anodes during fast charging. Therefore, Li plating regulation and morphology control are proposed to address this issue. Specifically, a Li plating-reversible graphite anode is achieved via a localized high-concentration electrolyte (LHCE) to successfully regulate the Li plating with high reversibility over high-rate cycling. The evolution of solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) before and after Li plating is deeply investigated to explore the interaction between the lithiation behavior and electrochemical interface polarization. Under the fact that Li plating contributes 40 % of total lithiation capacity, the stable LiF-rich SEI renders the anode a higher average Coulombic efficiency (99.9 %) throughout 240 cycles and a 99.95 % reversibility of Li plating. Consequently, a self-made 1.2-Ah LiNi_0.5Mn_0.3Co_0.2O₂ | graphite pouch cell delivers a competitive retention of 84.4 % even at 7.2 A (6 C) after 150 cycles. This work creates an ingenious bridge between the graphite anode and Li plating, for realizing the high-performance fast-charging batteries.     

A Systematic Study on the Effects of Solvating Solvents and Additives in Localized High-Concentration Electrolytes over Electrochemical Performance of Lithium-Ion Batteries

Localized high-concentration electrolytes (LHCEs) based on five different types of solvents were systematically studied and compared in lithium (Li)-ion batteries (LIBs). The unique solvation structure of LHCEs promotes the participation of Li salt in forming solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) on graphite (Gr) anode, which enables solvents previously considered incompatible with Gr to achieve reversible lithiation/delithiation. However, the long cyclability of LIBs is still subject to the intrinsic properties of the solvent species in LHCEs. Such issue can be readily resolved by introducing a small amount of additive into LHCEs. The synergetic decompositions of Li salt, solvating solvent and additive yield effective SEIs and cathode electrolyte interphases (CEIs) in most of the studied LHCEs. This study reveals that both the structure and the composition of solvation sheaths in LHCEs have significant effect on SEI and CEI, and consequently, the cycle life of energetically dense LIBs.     

一种有助于稳定锂金属循环的富氟化位点框架结构

锂金属是下一代高能量密度二次电池的理想负极材料,然而它的应用仍然受制于较差的循环稳定性。近期,二维氟化界面被广泛用于改善锂金属负极的成核机制、沉积形貌和循环稳定性。本工作通过将体积缩小化的氟化石墨颗粒与锂离子传导网络结合,获得了一种富氟化位点的三维框架结构。实验结果证明此类三维氟化结构可显著提升锂金属负极在不同电流密度和容量下的循环稳定性,且优于二维氟化界面结构。通过本工作的研究,证明了相较于单纯的二维氟化界面,三维锂离子传导网络和富氟化位点的合理结合可以成为一种改进的界面结构用于锂金属负极保护,为高能量密度锂金属电池的负极保护提供了新的设计思路。     

锂离子电池氧化亚硅负极结构优化和界面改性研究进展

氧化亚硅(SiO)作为锂离子电池负极材料,具有较高的理论比容量(~2043 mAh·g^-1)以及合适的脱锂电位(< 0.5 V),且原料储量丰富、制备成本较低、对环境友好,被认为是下一代高能量密度锂离子电池负极极具潜力的候选材料。然而,SiO在脱/嵌锂过程中存在着较严重的体积效应(~200%),易导致材料颗粒粉化、脱落,严重影响了SiO负极电极的界面稳定性和电化学性能。近年来,人们围绕SiO负极结构优化和界面改性开展了大量工作。本文先从SiO负极材料的结构特点出发,阐述了该材料面临的主要瓶颈问题;继而从SiO的结构优化、SiO/碳复合和SiO/金属复合等三方面,系统总结了迄今已有的SiO负极结构设计和界面调控策略,并分别对其方法特点、电化学性能以及二者间关联规律进行了比较和归纳,最后对SiO负极材料结构和界面改性的未来发展方向进行了展望。     

基于三维集流体的无枝晶锂金属负极

随着电化学储能市场的迅猛发展, 当前商用锂离子电池难以满足人们对高能量密度储能器件的需求. 锂金属具有高比容量和低氧化还原电位等优点, 被认为是下一代二次电池的理想负极材料. 然而, 锂金属负极在充放电过程中会出现体积变化大、 枝晶生长、 界面不稳定等问题, 严重阻碍了其在二次电池中的实际应用. 三维多孔材料具有骨架/空间互穿网络结构、 比表面积大、 孔隙发达和机械性能好等物理特性, 用作金属锂负极的集流体, 在锂沉积/溶解过程中可以起到降低局部有效电流密度、 均匀电场分布和降低锂离子浓度梯度的作用, 有望实现锂的均匀成核和无枝晶沉积, 同时抑制了电极的体积膨胀. 尽管有关三维集流体的研究报道不断出现, 但综合系统评价现有各种三维集流体体系的工作鲜见报道. 本文聚焦锂金属负极三维集流体的构建及应用研究进展, 首先分析了三维集流体抑制锂枝晶生长的基本原理及局限性, 继而重点关注了三维集流体的结构调控、 表面改性和功能化等应对策略对锂成核、 沉积过程的影响, 并对不同材质三维集流体的优缺点进行了归纳总结. 最后, 面向实用化, 分析并展望了三维集流体应用于锂金属电池的发展前景.     

Fe2O3锂离子电池负极材料研究进展

Fe2O3锂离子电池负极材料因其具有的高能量密度而备受关注。但Fe2O3电极材料存在的如低导电性、充/放电过程中体积改变导致的循环稳定性差等问题限制其实际应用。介绍了高比表面积、结构稳定以及储锂动力学等因素对锂离子电池负极材料电化学性能的重要影响,综述电极活性材料纳米化、形貌控制和杂原子掺杂对Fe2O3负极材料电化学性能改善的相关研究进展,最后对Fe2O3电极材料的发展前景进行了展望。     

Li Plating Regulation on Fast-Charging Graphite Anodes by a Triglyme-LiNO3 Synergistic Electrolyte Additive

Graphite anodes are prone to dangerous Li plating during fast charging, but the difficulty to identify the rate-limiting step has made a challenging to eliminate Li plating thoroughly. Thus, the inherent thinking on inhibiting Li plating needs to be compromised. Herein, an elastic solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) with uniform Li-ion flux is constructed on graphite anode by introducing a triglyme (G3)-LiNO₃ synergistic additive (GLN) to commercial carbonate electrolyte, for realizing a dendrite-free and highly-reversible Li plating under high rates. The cross-linked oligomeric ether and Li₃N particles derived from the GLN greatly improve the stability of the SEI before and after Li plating and facilitate the uniform Li deposition. When 51 % of lithiation capacity is contributed from Li plating, the graphite anode in the electrolyte with 5 vol.% GLN achieved an average 99.6 % Li plating reversibility over 100 cycles. In addition, the 1.2-Ah LiFePO₄ | graphite pouch cell with GLN-added electrolyte stably operated over 150 cycles at 3 C, firmly demonstrating the promise of GLN in commercial Li-ion batteries for fast-charging applications.     

锂金属负极亲锂骨架的研究进展

随着电动汽车和便携式电子产品的快速发展, 人们对于高比能二次电池的需求越来越迫切. 锂金属以其极高的理论比容量和极低的电极电势被视为下一代高比能电池理想负极材料之一. 但是, 锂枝晶的生长及体积膨胀等问题限制了金属锂负极的实际应用. 在金属锂负极中引入三维骨架可以有效抑制锂枝晶生长, 缓解体积膨胀. 其中亲锂骨架可以降低锂的形核能垒, 诱导锂的均匀成核, 更加有效地调控锂沉积行为. 本文结合国内外的研究进展总结了锂金属负极中亲锂骨架的研究成果. 根据亲锂材料的不同对亲锂骨架进行了分类, 总结了各类亲锂骨架在调控锂沉积行为和提高电池性能方面取得的成果, 并对其今后的研究和发展进行了展望.     

Integration of Graphite and Silicon Anodes for the Commercialization of High‐Energy Lithium‐Ion Batteries

Silicon is considered a most promising anode material for overcoming the theoretical capacity limit of carbonaceous anodes. The use of nanomethods has led to significant progress being made with Si anodes to address the severe volume change during (de)lithiation. However, less progress has been made in the practical application of Si anodes in commercial lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs). The drastic increase in the energy demands of diverse industries has led to the co‐utilization of Si and graphite resurfacing as a commercially viable method for realizing high energy. Herein, we highlight the necessity for the co‐utilization of graphite and Si for commercialization and discuss the development of graphite/Si anodes. Representative Si anodes used in graphite‐blended electrodes are covered and a variety of strategies for building graphite/Si composites are organized according to their synthetic methods. The criteria for the co‐utilization of graphite and Si are systematically presented. Finally, we provide suggestions for the commercialization of graphite/Si combinations.     

Recent progress on lithium-ion batteries with high electrochemical performance

Lithium-ion batteries(LIBs) have been widely used in many fields such as portable electronics and electric vehicles since their successful commercialization in the 1990 s. However, the electrochemical performance of current commercial LIBs still needs to be further improved to meet the continuously increasing demands for energy storage applications. Recently, tremendous research efforts have been made in developing next-generation LIBs with enhanced electrochemical performance. In this review, we mainly focus on the recent progress of LIBs with high electrochemical performance from four aspects, including cathode materials, anode materials, electrolyte, and separators. We discuss not only the commercial electrode materials(LiCoO_2,LiFePO_4, LiMn_2O_4, LiNi_xMn_yCo_zO_2, LiNi_xCo_yAl_zO_2, and graphite) but also other promising next-generation materials such as Li-, Mn-rich layered oxides, organic cathode materials, Si, and Li metal. For each type of materials, we highlight their problems and corresponding strategies to enhance their electrochemical performance. Nowadays, one of the key challenges to construct high-performance LIBs is how to develop cathode materials with high capacity and working voltage. This review provides an overview and future perspectives to develop next-generation LIBs with high electrochemical performance.     

Enhanced Anode Performances of Polyaniline-TiO(2)-Reduced Graphene Oxide Nanocomposites for Lithium Ion Batteries

Here, we report a three-layer-structured hybrid nanostructure consisting of transition metal oxide TiO(2) nanoparticles sandwiched between carbonaceous polymer polyaniline (PANI) and graphene nanosheets (termed as PTG), which, by simultaneously hindering the agglomeration of TiO(2) nanoparticles and enhancing the conductivity of PTG electrode, enables fast discharge and charge. It was demonstrated that the PTG exhibited improved electrochemical performance compared to pure TiO(2). As a result, PTG nanocomposite is a promising anode material for highly efficient lithium ion batteries (LIBs) with fast charge/discharge rate and high enhanced cycling performance [discharge capacity of 149.8 mAh/g accompanying Coulombic efficiency of 99.19% at a current density of 5C (1000 mA/g) after 100 cycles] compared to pure TiO(2). We can conclude that the concept of applying three-layer-structured graphene-based nanocomposite to electrode in LIBs may open a new area of research for the development of practical transition-metal oxide graphene-based electrodes which will be important to the progress of the LIBs science and technology.     

The preparation of porous graphite and its application in lithium ion batteries as anode material

Graphite is the most widely used anode material for lithium ion batteries (LIBs). However, the performance of graphite is limited by its slow charging rates. In this work, porous graphite was successfully prepared by nickel-catalyzed gasification. The existence of the pores and channels in graphite particles can greatly increase the number of sites for Li-ion intercalation-deintercalation in graphite lattice and reduce the Li-ion diffusion distance, which can greatly facilitate the rapid diffusion of lithium ions; meanwhile, the pores and channels can act as buffers for the volume change of the graphite in charging-discharging processes. As a result, the prepared graphite with pores and channels exhibits excellent cycling stability at high rate as anode materials for LIBs. The porous graphite offers better cycling performance than pristine graphite, retaining 81.4 % of its initial reversible capacity after 1500 cycles at 5 C rates. The effective synthesis strategy might open new avenues for the design of high-performance graphite materials. The porous graphite anode material is proposed in applications of high rate charging Li-ion batteries for electric vehicles.     

Preparing graphene oxide–copper composite material from spent lithium ion batteries and catalytic performance analysis

The wide use of lithium ion batteries (LIBs) has created much waste, which has become a global issue. It is vital to recycle waste LIBs considering their environmental risks and resource characteristics. Anode graphite from spent LIBs still possess a complete layer structure and contain some oxygen-containing groups between layers, which can be reused to prepare high value-added products. Given the intrinsic defect structure of anode graphite, copper foils in LIB anode electrodes, and excellent properties of graphene, graphene oxide–copper composite material was prepared in this work. Anode graphite was firstly purified to remove organic impurities by calcination and remove lithium. Purified graphite was used to prepare graphene oxide–copper composite material after oxidation to graphite oxide, ultrasonic exfoliation to graphene oxide (GO), and Cu²⁺ adsorption. Compared with natural graphite, preparing graphite oxide using anode graphite consumed 40% less concentrated H₂SO₄ and 28.6% less KMnO₄. Cu²⁺ was well adsorbed by 1.0 mg L^?1 stable GO suspension at pH 5.3 for 120 min. Graphene oxide–copper composite material could be successfully obtained after 6 h absorption, 3 h bonding between GO and Cu²⁺ with 3/100 of GO/CuSO₄ mass ratio. Compared to CuO, graphene oxide–copper composite material had better catalytic photodegradation performance on methylene blue, and the electric field further improved the photodegradation efficiency of the composite material.     

Synthesis Strategies and Applications for Pitch-Based Anode: From Industrial By-Products to Power Sources

It is significant for saving energy to manufacture superb-property batteries. Carbon is one of the most competitive anode materials in batteries, but it is hard for commercial graphite anodes to meet the increasingly higher energy-storage requirements. Moreover, the price of other better-performing carbon materials (such as graphene) is much higher than graphite, which is not conducive to massive production. Pitch, the cheap by-product in the petroleum and coal industries, has high carbon content and yield, making it possible for commercialization. Developing pitch-based anodes can not only lower raw material costs but also realize the pitch′s high value-added utilization. We comprehensively reviewed the latest synthesis strategies of pitch-derived materials and then introduced their application and research progress in lithium, sodium, and potassium ion batteries (LIBs, SIBs, and PIBs). Finally, we summarize and suggest the pitch′s development trend for anodes and in other fields.     

Fe3O4 anodes for lithium batteries: Production techniques and general applications

Iron oxides, such as Fe₃O₄, are putative anode materials for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). LIBs are extensively used as power sources for electronics. They typically consist of cells, with each cell built out of a lithium cathode and a graphite anode. However, graphite anodes suffer from the disadvantages of significant density, large volume, low energy density, and inferior safety levels. Iron oxides seem to be a promising substitute to the currently used graphite anodes due to their high capacity, extensive availability, good stability, and environmental tolerance. Nevertheless, several hurdles prevent their market expansion, such as inferior electronic/ionic conductivity, large volume changes, poor cycling performance, and low coulombic efficiency. Using Fe₃O₄ seems to be one alternative to address these challenges. This review will cover the current state of development of iron oxide electrodes with respect to design, production techniques, and general applications.     

层状钛硅酸盐化合物作为锂离子电池负极储能材料

锂离子二次电池是手提设备的重要电力来源。近年来,人们为了寻找更新颖更好的锂离子电极材料,开始研究晶形离子交换材料,这种材料具有开放孔道,能够让离子在多孔框架里自由的进出。一种具有层状结构的钛硅酸盐Na-JDF-L1(Na₄Ti₂Si₈O₂₂·4H₂O)经过离子交换后被用作锂离子负极材料。它在循环200次后放电容量保持在364 mAh·g^-1,并且库伦效率约为100%。通过将TiO₂引入Li(Na)-JDF-L1中,有效的提高了材料的首次库伦效率和倍率放电性能。     

层状钛硅酸盐化合物作为锂离子电池负极储能材料

锂离子二次电池是手提设备的重要电力来源。近年来, 人们为了寻找更新颖更好的锂离子电极材料, 开始研究晶形离子交换材料, 这种材料具有开放孔道, 能够让离子在多孔框架里自由的进出。一种具有层状结构的钛硅酸盐Na-JDF-L1(Na₄Ti₂Si₈O₂₂·4H₂O)经过离子交换后被用作锂离子负极材料。它在循环200次后放电容量保持在364 mAh·g^-1, 并且库伦效率约为100%。通过将TiO₂引入Li(Na)-JDF-L1中, 有效的提高了材料的首次库伦效率和倍率放电性能。     

石墨炔-有机共轭分子复合材料的制备及其储锂性能

发展了基于超分子化学的新方法实现了对石墨炔的原位氮掺杂,通过利用石墨炔与有机共轭分子间强的π–π作用,原位制备了石墨炔/卟吩复合材料薄膜,并用作锂离子电池的负极材料,其比容量增加到了1000 mAh∙g⁻¹,该复合材料表现出优良的倍率性能和循环稳定性,为可控制备掺氮石墨炔复合材料提供了新的思路。     

Nonflammable nonaqueous electrolytes for lithium batteries

As the energy density of state-of-the-art lithium (Li)-ion batteries (LIBs) increases, the safety concern of LIBs using liquid electrolytes is drawing increasing attention. Flammability of electrolytes is a critical link of the overall safety performance of LIBs and Li metal batteries. For this reason, intensive efforts have been devoted to suppressing the flammability of liquid electrolytes. In this short review, the common approaches to reduce the flammability of the nonaqueous liquid electrolytes will be summarized. The advantages and limitations of these approaches will also be discussed.