Potassium metal (K) is considered the optimal anode for K-ion batteries due to its high capacity and low operating potential. However, potassium metal batteries suffer from serious safety issues due to the instability of the solid electrolyte interface, uncontrollable growth of K dendrites, and rapid capacity decay.
Recently, Professor Yu-Meng Shi and Bing-Bing Tian from Shenzhen University reported a rationally designed 3D PVA-borax layer for obtaining promising potassium metal batteries, achieving a dendrite-free potassium plating/stripping process.
Key Points of the Article:
1) Researchers coated a 3D PVA-borax crosslinked film (PVA-Borax) onto the surface of a bare copper current collector. This crosslinked film originated from a famous toy called "Slime" developed by Mattel in the 1970s. It forms a crosslinked structure through the dehydration condensation reaction of borate and the hydroxyl groups of PVA, giving the slime high elasticity. Furthermore, this protective layer exhibits good wettability, high K-ion diffusivity, and good structural stability, enabling "uniform potassium plating at the bottom layer," thus demonstrating stable electrochemical performance.
2) Experimental results show that the Cu current collector with PVA-Borax exhibits a stable cycle life of 700 h at a current density of 0.5 mA cm⁻², and no dendrite formation occurs after 500 h at 10% depth of discharge (DOD) at 1 mA cm⁻². Even at high utilization rates of 25% DOD and 50% DOD, PVA-Borax@Cu shows stable cycling times of 180 and 100 h, respectively.
This rational design of the multifunctional three-dimensional PVA-borax composite layer ensures a dendrite-free potassium plating/stripping process, which is of great significance for the development of potassium metal batteries.
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