Promoting homogeneous lithium deposition by facet-specific absorption of CoIn3 for dendrite-free lithium metal anodes

Lithium metal is expected to be an ideal anode material for future high-energy density lithium batteries. However, the uncontrollable growth of lithium dendrites resulting in a short circuit inside the battery and battery failure has become an obstacle to commercializing lithium metal batteries. In this work, a surface with lithiophilic CoIn3 nucleation sites is developed to achieve a uniform lithium deposition by low temperature thermal treatment of super lithiophilic indium foil with three-dimensional (3D) cobalt foam (CoIn3 @CF). The CoIn3 @CF with 3D porous structure provide channels for rapid Li-ions (Li+) transport and inhibit the volume expansion, while the synergistic effect of lithiophilic CoIn3 alloys caused by the multi-facet orientation relationship promote the formation of homogeneous Li+ diffusion. As a result, the CoIn3@CF host exhibits long cycling over 2400 h at 40 mA cm−2/1 mA cm−2 in symmetric cells. Moreover, a full cell with the Li/CoIn3 @CF as anode and LiFePO4 as cathode delivers a columbic efficiency more than 99.3% over 800 cycles. This work provides a new perspective for the design of high energy Li anodes.