ITC congratulates Prof. Zijian Zheng, Professor of ITC, who recently published a journal review article entitled “Au-Coated Carbon Fabric as Janus Current Collector for Dendrite-free Flexible Lithium Metal Anode and Battery” in Applied Physics Reviews (IF: 19.162).
Flexible and wearable electronics span a range of cutting-edge applications, from roll-up displays and implantable medical devices to smart communications and the Internet of Things. Such applications require high energy density power sources, and lithium-metal batteries are among the most promising due to their high theoretical capacity, light weight, and cost efficiency. However, lithium dendrites at the top of the fabric anode increase the risk of separator piercing and, therefore, cause a high possibility of short circuits, especially when undergoing large mechanical deformation.
To ensure the safe application of the flexible lithium metal batteries, Prof. Zheng and his colleagues proposed to incorporate a 3D Janus current collector by a simple modification of the bottom side of carbon fabric (CC) with a lithiophilic gold layer in the paper. The result is a highly flexible, stable and safe lithium metal anode. This mitigates the issue of uncontrolled dendrite growth in flexible lithium batteries, effectively reducing the risk of short circuits and fire hazards, which represents an important impact on the future development of high energy density and flexible lithium metal batteries.
Dongdong Li, Yuan Gao, Chuan Xie, Zijian Zheng. Au-coated carbon fabric as Janus current collector for dendrite-free flexible lithium metal anode and battery. Applied Physics Reviews 2022, 9 (1) , 011424. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0083830
