Interfacial MXene engineering enabled lamellar lithium nucleation for dendrite-free lithium anodes

With the continuous growing demands for the energy density of batteries, the metallic lithium anode as a key component of high energy-density lithium metal batteries have attracted more and more attention. However, their practical applications are still restricted by serious problems such as the uncontrollable growth of lithium dendrites. Herein, MXene nanosheets are uniformly dispersed in the electrolyte as inorganic additives to homogenize the lithium deposition continuously. MXene not only effectively adsorbs lithium ions to promote the transport of lithium ions and weaken the lithium-ion concentration gradient at the anode interface, but also exhibits good conductivity and abundant functional groups to reduce the nucleation barrier of lithium. Moreover, MXene exhibits strong adsorption energy of the lithium atom, accelerating the uniform nucleation and the subsequent horizontal deposition of lithium. Consequently, this composite electrolyte reveals much increased lithium-ion conductivity and transference number. The assembled cell exhibits a high coulombic efficiency of 96