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High-safety and high-voltage lithium metal batteries enabled by nonflammable diluted highly concentrated electrolyte

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Abstract

Lithium metal batteries (LMBs) show great promise for achieving energy densities over 400 Wh·kg−1. However, highly flammable organic electrolytes are a long-lasting problem that triggers safety hazards and hinders the commercial application of LMBs. Here, a nonflammable diluted highly concentrated electrolyte (DHCE) with ethoxy(pentafluoro)cyclotriphosphazene (PFPN) as a diluent is developed to simultaneously achieve high safety and cycling stability of high-voltage LMBs. The optimal DHCE not only ensures reversible Li deposition/dissolution behavior with a superior average Coulombic efficiency (CE) over 99.1% on lithium metal anode (LMA), but also suppresses side reactions and stress crack on the LiCoO2 (LCO) under high cut-off voltage. The newly developed DHCE exhibits high thermal stability, showing complete nonflammability and reduced heat generation between the electrolyte and delithiated LCO/cycled LMA. This work offers an opportunity for rational designing nonflammable electrolytes toward high-voltage and safe LMBs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Project of State Grid Corporation of China (No. 4000-202320087A-1-1-ZN). The authors gratefully acknowledge the Analytical and Testing Center of HUST for allowing us to use its facilities. The authors thank Shiyanjia Lab (https://www.shiyanjia.com) for the density analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Materials Processing and Die & Mould Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Han Zhang, Yuanke Wu & Xinlan Wang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Electromagnetic Engineering and Technology, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Han Zhang, Ziqi Zeng, Yuanke Wu, Mengchuang Liu, Xinlan Wang, Shijie Cheng & Jia Xie

  3. State Grid Anhui Electric Power Research Institute, Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Electric Fire and Safety Protection (State Grid Laboratory of Fire Protection for Transmission and Distribution Facilities), Hefei, 230601, China

    Shuping Wang & Changhao Li

  4. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Mengchuang Liu

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  1. Han Zhang
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  2. Ziqi Zeng
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Zhang, H., Zeng, Z., Wang, S. et al. High-safety and high-voltage lithium metal batteries enabled by nonflammable diluted highly concentrated electrolyte. Nano Res. 17, 2638–2645 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-6056-5

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