Functional carbon materials addressing dendrite problems in metal batteries: surface chemistry, multi-dimensional structure engineering, and defects

Metal batteries that directly use active metals as anodes are considered as one of the most promising solutions to achieve the energy upgrade of battery technologies, while their practical application still suffers from dendrite problems. Functional carbon materials (FCMs) have demonstrated their great potential in suppressing metal dendrites benefitting from the multiple merits such as chemical tunability and capability of multi-dimensional structure assembly. Here, we initiate a review to present the recent progress in employing FCMs to deal with dendrite problems. It focuses on the surface chemistry and multi-dimensional carbon material engineering, which systematically overcomes the problems through diverse methods, such as reinforcing desolvation, improving interface compatibility, homogenizing electric field, buffering volume expansion and lattice mismatch. In addition, we also refine the long-standing debate about whether surface defects in FCMs are beneficial to suppress the metal dendrites or not, especially in the non-aqueous electrolyte regime. Finally, the remaining challenges for utilizing FCMs to suppress metal dendrites and the possible solutions are proposed to guide the future development.