Synergized Interface Engineering and Alloying Strategy for In Situ Construction of a Three-Dimensional Lithiophilic Carbon Skeleton: Motivating High-Performance Lithium Metal Batteries

Lithium metal is considered as a promising anode material for next-generation lithium batteries. However, challenges remain in terms of stability and cycle life in practical applications of lithium metal anodes. Herein, a lithium metal composite anode with a LiSn alloy coupled with a three-dimensional interconnected ZIF-67-derived carbon-modified carbon cloth (LiSn@CN@CC) is fabricated via the interface engineering and alloying strategy. The LiSn alloy as the nucleation center and Li3N as lithophilic sites jointly promoted the uniform deposition of lithium, and the prepared electrodes effectively mitigate the volume expansion in Sn. Consequently, the LiSn@CN@CC||LiSn@CN@CC cell demonstrates favorable performance with enhanced long-term cyclic stability of over 1800 h at 1.0 mA cm–2 and 1.0 mAh cm–2 and an ultralow nucleation overpotential of 15 mV after 1400 h. Impressively, the LiSn@CN@CC||LiFePO4 cell delivers a high capacity retention of 83.4% at 1 C after 300 cycles.