Manipulating the corrosion homogeneity of aluminum anode toward long-life rechargeable aluminum battery

Abstract

Aluminum metal batteries are considered to be promising secondary batteries due to their high theoretical specific capacity. However, metallic aluminum suffers from corrosion, pulverization, and crushing problems in nonaqueous electrolytes. Constructing a solid-electrolyte interphase layer on the anode electrode has been confirmed to be the key to improving the cycling performance of rechargeable batteries. Herein, we demonstrate an Al metal anode with a physical protective layer achieved by a simple blade coating method. This modified Al metal anode demonstrates ultra-low voltage hysteresis (~25 mV at 0.1 mA cm⁻² and ~30 mV at 1 mA cm⁻²), and superior stability (630 h at 0.1 mA cm⁻² and 580 h at 1 mA cm⁻²). When coupling this anode with flake graphite cathode, the assembled full cells exhibit superior cycling stability (92 mAh g⁻¹ maintained after 740 cycles at 0.1 A g⁻¹). The current work presents a promising approach to stabilize Al metal anodes for next-generation rechargeable aluminum batteries.