Cu coated soft fabric as anode for lithium metal batteries

Lithium dendrite related problems form a major barrier that limits the application of lithium metal anode for Li-ion batteries. Here a copper coated 3D soft fabric anode was developed to show superior battery performance under an optimized mechanical stress for the lithium metal anode application. A scalable two-step dip-coating method was applied to coat Cu onto various insulating cloth fabrics, making them electrically conductive. In our battery tests, the 3D soft conductive fabric contributes to a more uniform lithium deposition during the battery cycling, which works for more than 1000 h. The mechanism for suppressing lithium dendrite growth by the mechanical interaction with 3D Cu-fabric was also revealed by a combination of microscopy characterization, electrochemical test and theoretical modeling, which provides the design principle for their future applications in lithium metal anode batteries.