Guiding lithium growth direction by Au coated separator for improving lithium metal anode

Lithium metal is the most promising anode for next-generation batteries due to its highest theoretical capacity and lowest electrochemical potential. However, its dendritic growth hinders its practical use due to the consequent poor reversibility, potential short-circuit, and safety concerns. Suppressing lithium dendrite is difficult since dendritic growth is thermodynamically and kinetically favorable. Herein, we guide lithium to uniformly deposit along the opposite direction to normal by a nanolayer Au coating on a commercial polypropylene separator. It prevents lithium dendrites from piercing the separator, instead of inhibiting dendrites growth only. Au is lithiophilic, and lithium is calculated to be more attracted to Au and is confirmed to uniformly deposit on Au at the separator side rather than on the current collector side. Furthermore, Au also regulates the morphology of deposited lithium from a mossy state to a bulky state. In this work, the symmetric cell with the designed structure achieves excellent electrochemical performances of a long-life cycle over 2,000 h at 1 C for 1 mA h cm-2. Pairing with LiFePO4 cathode as a full cell, lithium metal anode with Au-modified polypropylene separator exhibits extraordinary performance with a high Coulombic efficiency of 99.23% over 800 cycles at 1 C.