Breaking the lithium deposition limit: <i>in situ</i> fabrication of a CoN-doped carbon skeleton membrane for anode-free lithium metal batteries.

ABSTRACT: Anode-free lithium metal batteries (AFLMBs) leverage a bare current collector (CC) as a lithium deposition substrate to achieve high energy density and reduced manufacturing costs. However, severe nucleation overpotential and dendritic growth, rooted in the Cu-Li lattice mismatch, hinder their practical deployment. Herein, a dense zeolitic imidazolate framework-67 (ZIF-67) polycrystalline membrane is epitaxially grown in situ on Cu CC via liquid-phase epitaxy and subsequently converted into a CoN-doped carbon skeleton membrane (67 MC@Cu) through thermal treatment. The embedded CoN nanoparticles, evolved from {CoN₄} units in ZIF-67, serve as highly lithiophilic sites that dynamically regulate lithium nucleation and suppress dendrite formation. The binder-free fabric

SUBMITTER: Ma W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12633425 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature