Sun Yawen, Zhou Jinqiu, Ji Haoqing, Liu Jie, Qian Tao, Yan Chenglin
College of Energy, Key Laboratory of Advanced Carbon Materials and Wearable Energy Technologies of Jiangsu Province, Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Manufacturing Technologies of Jiangsu Province & Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Technologies of Education Ministry of China , Soochow University , Suzhou 215006 , P. R. China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2019 Sep 4;11(35):32008-32014. doi: 10.1021/acsami.9b10551. Epub 2019 Aug 22.
High lithium nucleation overpotential on a lithiophobic matrix results in uncontrollable growth of lithium dendrites and thus restricts the wide application of lithium-metal batteries. Herein, the single-atom iron in a N-doped carbon matrix (Fe-N-C) is first reported as a lithiophilic site to minimize Li nucleation overpotential from 18.6 mV to a very low value of 0.8 mV. Molecular dynamics simulations quantitatively confirmed the excellent affinity between Li ions and Fe-N-C in the atomic level. Induced by the homogeneously distributed Fe-N in the carbon substrate, uniform and stable metallic Li plating/stripping behaviors are realized and lithium dendrite growth is greatly suppressed. The proposed strategy of using single-atom iron as a lithiophilic site to minimize lithium nucleation overpotential opens a promising avenue for solving intrinsic problems of Li-metal-based batteries.
在疏锂基体上较高的锂成核过电位会导致锂枝晶的不可控生长，从而限制了锂金属电池的广泛应用。在此，首次报道了氮掺杂碳基体（Fe-N-C）中的单原子铁作为亲锂位点，将锂成核过电位从18.6 mV降至极低的0.8 mV。分子动力学模拟在原子水平上定量证实了锂离子与Fe-N-C之间的优异亲和力。在碳基体中均匀分布的Fe-N的诱导下，实现了均匀稳定的金属锂电镀/剥离行为，大大抑制了锂枝晶的生长。所提出的使用单原子铁作为亲锂位点以最小化锂成核过电位的策略为解决锂基金属电池的内在问题开辟了一条有前景的途径。
