Plasma Enabled Lithophilic Host for Lithium Anodes

Abstract

The surge in electric vehicles and portable electronics has sparked increased demand for high-energy-density, rechargeable batteries. Lithium (Li) metal is sought after as the highest energy density anodes. However, Li metal suffers from many challenges including dendritic growth during stripping and plating and safety issues. This talk aims to discuss strategies to mitigate dendritic growth by using a 3D carbon-based host, as well as scalable fabrication techniques to integrate Li metal into a desirable 3D matrix. Electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectrometers are combined to investigate the surface chemistry and morphology, in order to better understand the interaction between the Li metal and 3D carbon-based host material. Identified shifts in the C1s and O1s peaks demonstrate added surface functional groups in the carbon-based host material. With surface functionalization, the proposed Li-metal anode demonstrates significantly improved stability of stripping and plating when compared with lithium metal foil. As a result, the cells assembled with our proposed Li metal anode and the LiNixMnyCozO2 (x+y+z=1) cathode displays enhanced cycling reversibility as compared to the cells assembled with the Li metal foil.