Development of Anode-Free Lithium Metal Batteries

Abstract

The continuous demand for high energy density storage devices, researchers has focused on a new energy storage system for their practical life. Absolutely, Lithium metal is a best anode candidate for high energy density Lithium Metal Battery (LMB) because it has high theoretical capacity, light weight and much lower negative reduction potential.However, the growth of Li dendrite and low Coulombic efficiency upon Li plating/stripping causes the safety issues and poor cycle life of LMBs because of challenges embedded from the interaction of the Li metal with electrolyte and unstable SEI layer formation. For that reason, people have focused on developing new chemistry/system to improve the energy density, cycle life and safe energy storage system for practical applications. Anode free lithium metal battery (AFLMB) is one of the alternate choices and new system for high energy density storage system because it has no active anode material initially. In addition, the fabrication of AFLMB is simple, low-cost, safe since Li metal is not directly used as an anode. However, since the Li amount is limited and electrolyte decomposition, consuming Li during the SEI formation, the capacity can fade quickly relative to LMB. The dead Li can affect the Coulombic efficiency, polarization, and cycle life of the cell during continues cycles of AFLMB. However, AFLMB is the best system to understand the detail chemistry like quantification of dead Li, polarization effect, electrolyte consumption easily compared to the LMB. In this presentation, various approaches including functional electrolytes and functional coating on Cu surface will be reported to improve the coulombic efficiency, energy density and cycle life for the AFLMB.