Lithiophilic Chemistry Facilitated Ultrathin Lithium for Scalable Prelithiation

• Published in: Nano letters 2024-02, Vol.24 (6), p.2094-2101
• Main Authors: Wang, Kuangyu, Yang, Cheng, Yuan, Ruichuan, Xu, Fei, Zhang, Yingchuan, Ding, Tiezheng, Yu, Maosheng, Xu, Xinxiu, Long, Yuanzheng, Wu, Yulong, Li, Lei, Li, Xiaoyan, Wu, Hui
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c04885

Prelithiation plays a crucial role in advancing the development of high-energy-density batteries, and ultrathin lithium (UTL) has been proven to be a promising anode prelithiation reagent. However, there remains a need to explore an adjustable, efficient, and cost-effective method for manufacturing UTL. In this study, we introduce a method for producing UTL with adjustable thicknesses ranging from 1.5 to 10 μm through blade coating of molten lithium on poly­(vinylidene fluoride)-modified copper current collectors. By employing the transfer-printing method, prelithiated graphite and Si–C composite electrodes are prepared, which exhibit significantly improved initial Coulombic efficiencies of 99.60% and 99.32% in half-cells, respectively. Moreover, the energy densities of Li­(NiCoMn)1/3O2 and LiFePO4 full cells assembled with the prelithiated graphite electrodes increase by 13.1% and 23.6%, respectively.