Three-dimensional carbon based current collectors for lithium-based batteries

Abstract

Three-dimensional carbon materials combining excellent mechanical, electrical and thermal properties with very good electrochemical resistance have shown great potential for electrochemical energy storage. Building up a three-dimensional current collector can simultaneously optimize the conductive network in the electrochemically active layers and mitigate the volume change at the electrode level during cycling, which leads to enhanced energy density, power density and cycle stability. This review aims to provide an overview of the recent key progress on 3D carbon current collector for Li-ion batteries. According to the type of the connections at the junctions between the nano/micro-scale constituents, we categorize 3D carbon materials into two aspects: 3D carbon networks based on covalent connection and 3D carbon networks based on non-covalent connection. The requirements and the challenges of the 3D carbon based current collector’s design are discussed, which provide inspiration for further exploitation of the current collectors for Li-ion batteries and shed light on batteries based on other electrochemistry.