A high-performance room-temperature magnesium ion battery with self-healing liquid alloy anode mediated with a bifunctional intermetallic compound

Liquid metals with a self-healing property can address the passivation issue of Mg metal and the huge volume variation problem of solid alloy-type anodes in rechargeable magnesium ion batteries (MIBs). Liquid Ga-based anodes show great potentials in MIBs, however, being operated at room temperature is a great challenge. Herein, a novel strategy is proposed to enhance the room-temperature Mg storage performance of liquid eutectic GaSn (EGaSn) alloy through constructing a bifunctional intermetallic compound (Ag3Ga) layer on the current collector. This Ag3Ga layer could greatly improve the wettability of EGaSn on the substrate in the electrolyte environment. Moreover, operando X-ray diffraction confirms that Ag3Ga could participate the reversible alloying/dealloying reactions during the discharge/charge processes and thus provide an extra capacity. Eventually, the Ag3Ga-mediated EGaSn anode exhibits outstanding electrochemical performance towards Mg storage in both half and full cells at room temperature (∼24 and 21 °C), as benchmarked with state-of-the-art anodes in MIBs. Specially, the MIBs could be stably cycled up to 600 cycles in the half cell configuration, and 100 cycles in the full cell assembly. This work provides useful information on the development of advanced anodes for MIBs.