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Molecular sieve based Janus separators for Li-ions redistribution to enable stable lithium deposition

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Abstract

During operation of a lithium metal battery, uneven lithium deposition often results in the growth of lithium dendrites and causes a rapid decay in battery performance and even leads to safety issues. This is still the main hurdle hindering the practical application of lithium metal anodes. We report a new type of Janus separator fabricated by introducing a molecular sieve coating on the surface of the polypropylene separator that serves as a redistribution layer for lithium ions. Our results show that using this layer, the growth of lithium dendrites can be largely inhibited and the battery performance greatly improved. In a typical Li∥Cu half-cell with the Janus separator, the Coulombic efficiency of the lithium metal anode can be maintained at > 98.5% for over 500 cycles. The cycling life span is also extended by a factor of 8 in the Li∥Li symmetric cell. Furthermore, the high-strength coating improves the mechanical properties of the separator, thus enhancing safety. The effectiveness of our strategy is demonstrated by both the inhibited growth of lithium dendrites and the improved battery performance. Our methodology could eventually be generalized for electrode protection in other battery systems.

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate funding support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. U2032202, 21975243 and 51672262), the National Program for Support of Topnotch Young Professional and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. WK2060000026).

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  1. Huanyu Xie and Zhimeng Hao contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion, Department of Applied Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Huanyu Xie, Shuai Xie, Yadong Ye, Wei Zhang, Zhaowei Sun, Song Jin & Hengxing Ji

  2. Key Laboratory of Advanced Energy Materials Chemistry (Ministry of Education), College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China

    Zhimeng Hao & Jun Chen

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  1. Huanyu Xie
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  5. Wei Zhang
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  7. Song Jin
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Correspondence to Song Jin, Hengxing Ji or Jun Chen.

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Xie, H., Hao, Z., Xie, S. et al. Molecular sieve based Janus separators for Li-ions redistribution to enable stable lithium deposition. Nano Res. 15, 5143–5152 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4181-1

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