A N-doped porous carbon framework with Ag-nanoparticles toward stable lithium metal anodes

A three-dimensional (3D) highly N-doped porous carbon framework embedded with uniformly distributed Ag nanoparticles (ADPCF) is presented via a simple chemical blowing method. N-doping can make the substance more lithiophilic and regulate the plating process of Li. Meanwhile, the lithiophilic porous carbon scaffold not only shows great electrochemical performance, but also effective suppression of Li dendrites, when it is applied to lithium metal batteries. Ag nanoparticles can reduce the nucleation overpotential owing to the uniform nucleation sites. The cells assembled from the ADPCF host present a dendrite-free lithium deposition behavior and demonstrate a stable electrochemical performance. For the half cells, the coulombic efficiency is maintained above 98.5% for 100 cycles at 1 mA cm−2 with a limited areal capacity. When assembled in symmetric cells, the ADPCF as an anode host enables extraordinary cycling stability for over 2500 h at 1 mA cm−2.