Controllable lithium deposition behavior hollow of N, O co-doped carbon nanospheres for practical lithium metal batteries

Abstract Metallic Li is of great significance for high energy Li-based batteries due to its high specific capacity, low electrochemical potential, and low density. However, host-less Li deposition and dendritic growth are the main bottlenecks in Li-based batteries’ practical application. We demonstrate a hollow N, O co-doped carbon nanosphere (NOCS) as a current collector for Li metal anode in this work. It can alleviate the volume effect and delay the generation of Li dendrite and induce the uniform deposition of Li on the NOCS electrode and improve Coulombic efficiency (CE). Li/NOCS half cells deliver a higher CE and longer cycle life, and symmetrical cells exhibit lower voltage hysteresis and more stable cyclic performance. DFT calculation confirmed that N-doping and O-doping improve the affinity between N/O-doped carbon sites with Li. Besides, we use finite Li as the anode to prepare the Li@NOCS||LiFePO4 full cells to evaluate the possibility of practical application. The Li@NOCS||LiFePO4 full cells have excellent cycling and rate performance compared to Li@Cu|| LiFePO4 full cells.