Uniform Li Plating/Stripping within Ni Macropore Arrays Enabled by Regulated Electric Field Distribution for Ultra-Stable Li-Metal Anodes

Summary: Although Li-metal anodes are extremely attractive owing to the ultrahigh theoretical specific capacity, the low Coulombic efficiency and severe safety hazards resulting from uncontrollable Li dendrites growth hinder their widespread implementation. Herein, we propose a novel design of Ni macropore arrays for the functional Li deposition host. Benefiting from the regulated electric field distribution, Li nucleation and growth can be well confined within conductive Ni macropores. Consequently, the Ni macropore array electrode exhibits stable Li deposition behavior, i.e., high Coulombic efficiency of above 97% over 400 cycles for 1.0 mAh cm−2. Most importantly, the LiFePO4 || Li-Ni macropore arrays full cell also shows greatly enhanced cycling stability (90.3 mAh g−1 at 1 C after 700 cycles), holding great promise for high-performance rechargeable Li metal batteries.