Hierarchical porous and lithiophilic CuMn current collector for advanced lithium metal batteries

Lithium metal faces serious problems such as dendrite growth and volume expansion, which make lithium metal batteries lose the opportunity in commercialization. Herein, we report a simple route to prepare a hierarchical porous CuMn (hp-CuMn) current collector (CC) with an epitaxially grown lithiophilic layer to solve these problems. The hp-CuMn with industrialization potential can achieve uniform current distribution and geometric constraints. Meanwhile, the epitaxially grown MnO by annealing the hp-CuMn with surface absorbed oxygen in reductive atmosphere effectively improves the interfacial bonding force and lithiophilicity. Consequently, the hp-CuMn@MnO with thickness about 85 μm (can store Li of 14.45 mAh cm−2 by molten lithium injection, 5 times of the graphite anode) have a small hysteresis voltage and can be stable for up to 1500 h. Full cells with LiFePO4 display ultrahigh capacity retention ratio (96.8 %) after 600 cycles at 2 C, and has good compatibility with the current industry, which verifies the application value.