Fluorination of lithium metal used as anode in lithium metal batteries

Abstract

This invention refers to an innovative treatment capable of forming a coating on metallic lithium. This coating is able to solve the problem of dendritic growth, which represents a safety risk for batteries in terms of overheating or even catching fire. It is a process for the surface fluorination of metallic lithium using elemental fluorine. In this way, a uniform and impurity-free surface layer of lithium fluoride is formed on the whole surface of metallic lithium. This highly reproducible treatment can also be carried out on a large scale; it allows the creation of a material that can be advantageously used as anode in lithium batteries, since it guarantees significantly higher performances than those obtained by using bare metallic lithium anodes, and also those with lithium metal anodes equipped with a lithium fluoride layer, in which the creation of a lithium fluoride layer is achieved in situ by organic or other inorganic fluorinating agents.