Sub‐Thick Electrodes with Enhanced Transport Kinetics via In Situ Epitaxial Heterogeneous Interfaces for High Areal‐Capacity Lithium Ion Batteries

• Published in: Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) Vol. 17; no. 26; pp. e2100778 - n/a
• Main Authors: Zhou, Shuhui, Huang, Peng, Xiong, Tuzhi, Yang, Fang, Yang, Hao, Huang, Yongchao, Li, Dong, Deng, Jianqiu, Balogun, M.‐Sadeeq (Jie Tang)
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Weinheim Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01-07-2021
• Subjects: Electric vehicles; Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy; Electrode materials; Electrodes; Electron diffusion; Energy storage; Flux density; heterogeneous interfaces; high areal capacity; Ion storage; Kinetics; Lithium; Lithium-ion batteries; Metal foams; Nanotechnology; Nickel oxides; Rechargeable batteries; Storage systems; sub‐thick electrodes; transport kinetics
• ISSN: 1613-6810; 1613-6829
• DOI: 10.1002/smll.202100778

The ever‐growing portable electronics and electric vehicle draws the attention of scaling up of energy storage systems with high areal‐capacity. The concept of thick electrode designs has been used to improve the active mass loading toward achieving high overall energy density. However, the poor rate capabilities of electrode material owing to increasing electrode thickness significantly affect the rapid transportation of ionic and electron diffusion kinetics. Herein, a new concept named “sub‐thick electrodes” is successfully introduced to mitigate the Li‐ion storage performance of electrodes. This is achieved by using commercial nickel foam (NF) to develop a monolithic 3D with rich in situ heterogeneous interfaces anode (Cu3P‐Ni2P‐NiO, denoted NF‐CNNOP) to reinforce the adhesive force of the active materials on NF as well as contribute additional capacity to the electrode. The as‐prepared NF‐CNNOP electrode displays high reversible and rate areal capacities of 6.81 and 1.50 mAh cm−2 at 0.40 and 6.0 mA cm−2, respectively. The enhanced Li‐ion storage capability is attributed to the in situ interfacial engineering within the NiO, Ni2P, and Cu3P and the 3D consecutive electron conductive network. In addition, cyclic voltammetry, charge–discharge curves, and symmetric cell electrochemical impedance spectroscopy consistently reveal improved pseudocapacitance with enhanced transports kinetics in this sub‐thick electrodes.
A new concept termed “sub‐thick electrode” is introduced to address the poor transport kinetics by reinforcing the adhesive force of active materials on NF current collector as well as contributing extra capacity to the electrode. The optimized electrode displayed high initial and reversible areal capacity of 10.31 and 7.46 mAh cm−2 at 0.4 mA cm−2 due to enhanced transport kinetics.