Powder-sintering derived 3D porous current collector for stable lithium metal anode

Abstract

Lithium metal, own to high capacity, negative potential and good conductivity, has a huge application prospect for next-generation lithium batteries. Nevertheless, its commercialization is largely hindered by volume expansion and Li dendrites. In this work, we employ a low-cost and scalable powder-sintering method to obtain 3D porous Cu–Zn alloy, which can be used as a host material to induce dendrite-free Li deposition. 3D porous Cu–Zn alloy renders high surface areas, uniform spatial structure and even the good lithiophilicity, resulting in low Li deposition interface energy and low lithium deposition barrier. As a result, 3D porous Cu–Zn alloy electrode exhibits a superior Coulombic efficiency of 98.3% for 160 cycles at 1.0 mA/cm2, whereas the Coulombic efficiency of Cu foil electrode quickly drops to less than 80.0% only after 55 cycles. In addition, 3D porous Cu–Zn alloy electrode still runs stably for 45 cycles at 10.0 mA/cm2, and even at a high deposition capacity of 5.0 mAh/cm2. Therefore, powder-sintering derived 3D porous Cu–Zn alloy may provide innovative insights of electrode designs for next-generation metallic lithium anodes.