V2CTx MXene Artificial Solid Electrolyte Interphases toward Dendrite-Free Lithium Metal Anodes

The commercialization of lithium (Li)-metal batteries is severely stagnated by uncontrollable Li dendrite growth particularly under deep stripping/plating conditions. The solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) is a crucial component for lithium metal anodes (LMAs). Herein, we have demonstrated a V2CTx MXene artificial SEI for dendrite-free LMAs. The strong binding energy between Li adatoms and V2CTx facilitates uniform nucleation and guides horizontal Li growth, while the low diffusion energy barriers of Li adatoms on V2CTx enable fast electromigration of Li+ ions. As a result, the use of the V2CTx artificial SEI enables the outstanding performances of the asymmetric half-cell, exhibiting a Coulombic efficiency (CE) of 96.3% after 180 cycles under deep stripping/plating conditions (4 mA h cm–2 and 4 mA cm–2) and a superior rate performance with a CE of 96.9% up to 250 cycles at 10 mA cm–2. Furthermore, the V2CTx-Li||NCM811 full-cell shows a prominent capacity of 129.1 mA h g–1 over 450 cycles in a carbonate-based electrolyte at 0.5 C. This work demonstrates V-based MXenes for high-performance LMBs under deep stripping/plating conditions.