The lithium metal anode is considered to be the ultimate
anode
material for high-energy-density rechargeable batteries. However,
the application of lithium metal batteries is plagued by Li dendrite
growth. Here, we report a flexible polymer (polyacrylic acid–Pluronic,
PAF) interface for dendrite-free lithium metal batteries. The lithiophilic
groups (ester group) in PAF can coordinate with lithium ions for the
uniform distribution of lithium ions at the lithium/electrolyte interface,
thus achieving dendrite-free lithium deposition. Moreover, the PAF
polymer interface exhibits a high stretchability (278% strain to its
initial length) and can tolerate the huge volume change during the
plating/stripping processes. Consequently, the symmetric cells with
the PAF@Li anode deliver excellent cycling stability over 600 h (1
mA cm–2, 2 mAh cm–2) with a slight
overpotential of around 76 mV. Notably, the PAF@Li|LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 full cell exhibits
a high capacity retention of 78.5% with a high cathode mass loading
(16.5 mg cm–2) even after 190 cycles at 1 C (3.5
mA cm–2).
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