Steam Selective Etching: A Strategy to Effectively Enhance the Flexibility and Suppress the Volume Change of Carbonized Paper-Supported Electrodes

Paper-supported electrodes with high flexibility have attracted much attention in flexible Li-ion batteries. However, they are restricted by the heavy inactive paper substrate and large volume change during the lithiation-delithiation process, which will lead to low capacity and poor rate capability and cyclability. Converting the paper substrate to carbon fiber by carbonization can substantially eliminate the "dead mass", but it becomes very brittle. This study reports a water-steam selective etching strategy that successfully addresses these problems. With the help of steam etching, pores are created, and transition-metal oxides are embedded into the fiber. These effectively accommodate the volume change and enhances the kinetics of ion and electron transport. The pores release the mechanical stress from bending, ensuring the sufficient bendability of carbonized paper. Benefiting from these merits, the steam-etched samples show high flexibility and possess outstanding electrochemical performance, including ultra-high capacity and superior cycling stability with capacity retention over 100% after 1500 cycles at 2 A g-1. Furthermore, a flexible Li-ion full battery using the steam-etched Fe2O3@CNF anode and LiFePO4/steam-etched CNF cathode delivers a high capacity of 623 mAh g-1 at 100 mA g-1 and stable electrochemical performances under the bent state, holding great promise for next-generation wearable devices.