Ionic liquid assisted electrochemical coating zinc nanoparticles on carbon cloth as lithium dendrite suppressing host

Abstract The application of lithium metal anode with high specific capacity and energy density is limited by the volume expansion and pulverization caused by dendrite growth during cycle process. We propose a composite lithium anode by immersing molten lithium on the flexible three-dimensional (3D) carbon cloth scaffold with the zinc nanoparticles. The lithiophilic zinc nanoparticles layer of framework is synthesized by fast and easy electrochemical deposition from ionic liquid avoiding high temperature, high pressure and toxic reagent. The lithium is infused into the 3D lithiophilic framework, the composite anode is obtained. The steady network structure can confine the lithium and lead to Li dendrite restraining and reducing volume change due to the low interfacial resistance and reduce the effective current density, which induced the homogeneous Li growth. Benefiting from this, the Li infused 3D carbon cloth-Zn symmetric battery exhibits a low stripping/plating overpotential (∼30 mV) and can be stable over 900 h at 1 mA cm-2. The Li//LiFePO4 battery delivers higher reversible capacity (140 mAh g-1 at 2 C and 120 mAh g-1at 5 C) and stable cycling for 1500 and 2000 cycles than bare Li.