Regulating the horizontal confined deposition of lithium metal by Co-Nx modified honeycomb-like carbon nanosheets

Abstract

The uncontrollable Li dendrite growth as well as the severe volume expansion of Li metal anodes during cycling significantly impedes the practical applications of high-energy-density Li metal batteries. In this work, an innovative modulation strategy has been developed by constructing honeycomb-like nitrogen-doped carbon nanosheets with uniformly anchored cobalt nanoparticles (denoted as Co@HNC) for regulating the Li deposition behavior and meanwhile alleviating volume change during cycling. On one hand, the lithiophilic Co-Nx sites can largely reduce the energy barrier of Li nucleation and subsequently guide horizontal confined Li deposition in the honeycomb-like holes of Co@HNC, which is verified by the density functional theory calculations and in-situ optical microscopy observations. On the other hand, the honeycomb-like carbon framework with good structural integrity can endure the huge volume change during repeated Li plating/stripping processes. Consequently, the optimized Co@HNC electrode delivered a promoted cycling life for over 600 times with high Coulombic efficiency of 98.5 % at 1 mA cm−2. When matched with the high-mass-loading LiFePO4 (20 mg cm−2) or high-voltage LiNi0.8Mn0.1Co0.1O2 cathode, the Li@Co@HNC anode exhibited outstanding cycling stability and rate capability under low negative/positive capacity ratio, demonstrating its great potential in practical applications of high-energy-density lithium metal batteries.