A facile surface preservation strategy on the lithium anode for high performance Li-O2 batteries.

: Protecting anode from deterioration during charging/discharging has been seen as one of the key strategies in achieving high performance lithium (Li) -O2 batteries and other Li metal batteries with high energy density. Here, we describe a facile approach to prevent the Li anode from dendritic growth and chemical corrosion by constructing a SiO2/GO hybrid thin layer on the surface. The uniform porous preserving layer can conduct Li ion in the stripping/plating process, lead to an effective alleviation of the dendritic growth of Li by guiding the ion flux through the microstructure. Such preservation technique significantly enhance the cell performance by enabling the Li-O2 cell to cycle up to 348 times at 1 A•g-1 with a capacity of 1000 mAh•g-1, which is several folds of the cycles of cells with the pristine Li (58 cycles), Li-GO (166 cycles) and Li-SiO2 (187 cycles). Moreover, the rate performance is improved and the ultimate capacity of cell is dramatically increased from 5400 mAh•g-1 to 25200 mAh•g-1. This facile technology is robust and conformal to the Li surface, which demonstrate the potential applications in developing future high performance and long lifespan Li batteries in a cost-effective fashion.