Low-cost, lightweight electrodes based on carbon fibers as current collectors for aluminum-ion batteries

Abstract

For addressing the problems of current collectors in the aluminum ion batteries, a variety of carbon-based current collectors are employed for serving as lightweight non-metal current collectors. The results indicate that the carbon-based current collectors have electrochemical stability in the ionic liquid environments. This study demonstrates that rationally designing a 3D cross-stacked carbon fiber composite layer as the current collector is an efficient and effective “two-in-one” strategy to reduce the entire electrode mass and provide a long cycling stability with no electrochemical corrosion. Moreover, the electrode connects closely with carbon fiber composite layer, which shows considerable cell performance, strong mechanical, and more importantly, light in weight (2.5 mg cm−2). According to the electrochemical measurements, high reversible capacity of 95 mAh g−1 is obtained at a rate of 1 C. Implication of the results from suggests that all-carbon positive electrodes are able to deliver more advantages in energy storage behaviors in comparison with the traditional positive electrodes of metal Mo current collectors. Such novel strategy promises a new route for fabricating high-performance positive electrodes for stable advanced aluminum batteries.